There is no shortcut

Uncomfortable zone, suffering, pain... and all of that.

2010-01-15T14:04:00.002+01:00

I haven't done a workout like this one in a long time. This will also be my last blog on there-is-no-shortcut.blogspot.com. From now on I will put my blogs up on www.crossfituppsala.se, in swedish.

Workout (courtesy of GymJones.com):
1
10x Hang Squat Clean @ 50% 1RM +
2:00 minute AirDyne (15sec @ 100rpm/15sec @ 70rpm) +
2:00 minute Rest
Three Rounds
Then:
5 minute intermission (including 3rd-2min rest period above)

2
5x Two Handed KB Clean +
5x Two Handed KB Jerk +
2:00 minute Ski Erg @ >500m pace +
2:00 minute Rest
Three Rounds
Then:
5 minute intermission (including 3rd-2min rest period above)

3
8x Pull-up +
8x Push-up +
8x KB Swing @ 53# +
8x DB Push Press @ 2 x 25# +
8x KTE +
8x Pull-up
Three sets, Rest one minute between each

Results:
1: Hang Squat Clean @ 50 kg.
Did CrossTrainer instead of AirDyne. I'm not sure what I kept up but it was something like 40 kcal / lap.

2: Kb Clean/Jerk @ 20 kg per Dumbbell (did DB instead of KB). Rowing instead of Ski Erg. I did 1m30s instead of 2 minutes. Results were 440/430/440 meters.

3: I removed the first 8 of the pullups (after the first round). My time was running short and my body was not very happy with me. Pullups and KTE's were done at singles.

Every round pushed me to a place where I didn't want to stay for long. People gave me weird looks at the gym, etc. The Crosstrainer brought me to the brink of being able to stand and the rowing machine took it one step further. As I entered into the final part of the workout, I was experiencing issues with continuing at all... which is why I lowered the amount of pull-ups. I haven't felt this broken in a very long time.

Time: 41 minutes... something. I didn't care to stop the watch when I was done, I just had to rest.

Simon.

Satisfaction

2010-01-14T19:03:00.003+01:00

Workout at home today. My body has been quite broken the last couple of days because of sunday/monday workouts. My two recovery workouts (yoga+snatch-stuff yesterday) has been helping but I still felt that my lats had taken a beating from yesterday's pullup-part. I'll remember the pullup-sets to implement similar ones into my workouts in the future.

Today I did my workout in the evening, hoping that my body would recuperate a little bit extra.

Warmup:
Squats, pushups, HSPU, pull-ups, L-pullups.

Workout, Crossfit Uppsala tuesday workout:
For time:
50-40-30-20-10 KB swing/situps. (50 swing 50 situp 40 swing 40 situp etc).

Result:
9 minutes 49 seconds.

Satisfaction. I haven't felt this good in a workout ever in my entire life.
KB breakage:
50 / 30+10 / 20+10 / 20 / 10.
Situps pretty much unbroken (1-2 second rests here and there).

I'm not sure why I managed to push myself this hard. I mean sure, my training has improved tons the last 6 months and this is obviously one of the results from it. I did a KB swing-ladder last week and I felt that I was mentally more stable to push myself harder and harder. The swings were not split because of ability, but because of planning ahead. My arms were heavily loaded but I never once felt that I was having O2 problems. The situps were rougher because my core muscles tend to give up around 30 intensive situps. Using my entire body to complete the situps, I was able to continue to the end. I always felt like I could just give one more, and that's the thing that kept me going.

Tomorrow is friday, I have a workout waiting in the back of my mind that I've been wanting to do. Perhaps this is the time.

Simon.

I like a good snatch

2010-01-13T13:39:00.003+01:00

Taken from Catalyst Athletics (www.cathletics.com). I was pretty sore from my previous workouts (STILL), so this felt like a pretty easy-going workout that wouldn't break me down and should still give me a little bit of excersize!

Snatch - 75% x 1, 78% x 1, 80% x 1, 75% x 1 x 2
Clean & jerk - 75% x 1, 78% x 1, 80% x 1, 75% x 1 x 2
Front squat - med/heavy single
Kipping pull-ups - 3 x 65% of max consec reps/set

Results:
Started with CFWU (crossfit warmup).
Snatch: 50, 52.5, 55, 57.5, 50x1x2. (I did 50x2 :( )
Clean & Jerk: 75kgx1, 77.5kgx1, 80kg x 1, 75 kg x 2
Front Squat: Worked up to 100 kg. Felt fine. I can probably go up to 110-120 somewhere.
Kipping pull-ups: 14/14/12(fail)/14.

That's it!

Yoga.

2010-01-12T21:05:00.001+01:00

77 minutes yoga.

(whew).

Simon

100!

2010-01-11T16:32:00.004+01:00

100'th post.

Workout:
5 RM Squat

For time:
A1: 25/20/15/10/5 pushups
A2: 30 walking lunges
(Do 25 pushups, then 30 walking lunges, then 20 pushups, then 30 walking lunges... etc.)

Results:
130 kgx5 Squat
5:00 on the metcon.

The 130 kg squats felt heavy. I've done 5x5x130kg as PR on work-sets so I was hoping that 130 wouldn't be this heavy. I've got to get on the squat-schedule and do 1 heavy squat / week. The metcon was nice though. Would have been hard to push myself harder than that.

I thought I had grip, part 2.

2010-01-10T16:56:00.002+01:00

Wow, I'm not sure what I thought when I planned this workout(s)

First:
1 RM Clean & Jerk.

Then:
"CT":
Five rounds of:
155 pound Deadlift, 12 reps
155 pound Hang power clean, 9 reps
155 pound Push jerk, 6 reps

Results:
Clean & Jerk:
60, 70, 80, 90, 95, 100 (PR+PR), 105 (PR+Fail).
I loved that. I can go higher on the clean, 110 shouldn't be a problem. PR on both Clean and on the Jerk and on C&J :P My Clean is now higher than my powerclean!

CT was done with 70 kg.
Result: 22 minutes blank. The result here could be better if I hadn't done 1RM C&J just before. My grip was the thing that died. It died HARD. The last 2 rounds was done with singles on the cleans, which were the roughest and toughest part of the CT.

Seidi result: 14 minutes 16 seconds, done with 20 kg barbell. She started out with 30 kg but couldn't do the powercleans (she did those instead of cleans since she has just recently started trying powercleans). She lowered to 25 kg but that was too hard on the powerclean as well, so she lowered to 20 kg. Switching weights probably took up a lot of time so next time will be better!

Yoga!

2010-01-08T22:30:00.001+01:00

Workout:
78 minutes Yoga.
(Sweaty).

Tabata Bear

2010-01-07T14:28:00.002+01:00

Work up heavy 5 RM deadlift.
( Do 5 strict pullups between sets )

Workout:
3 rounds of:

3 tabata intervals wallballs
3 tabata intervals deadlifts
3 tabata intervals KB swings

Results:
DL 5RM: 150kg. 4x5 pullups.

Workout:
100 kg deadlifts, 16 kg KB (high swings), 8 kg wallball.

I don't remember all of the results, but I do remember most of the min/max per round

Wallballs (max/min): 12/10, 10/9, 10/8
Deadlifts (max/min): 8/4, 4/4, 3/2
KB Swings (max/min): 11/10, 9/9, 10/8

I'm not going to be able to walk for days. I pushed myself really hard, the only place where I could have done better was during the deadlifts. My back (which I have had a lot of problems with) went better than expected. Actually the KB swings were straining it harder than the DL's. Probably because of yesterday's workout.

/Simon

Breathing ladder

2010-01-06T19:20:00.003+01:00

Workout:
1 KB swing,
1 deep breath of air (in through nose, out through mouth).
2 KB swing
2 deep breaths
3 KB swing.. etc

up to 20, then back to 1.

All in all: 400 swings

Result:
24 KB. Time: 23 minutes 42 seconds.

Comments:
Never, ever, ever do this with 24 kg kb again. I didn't quite get the O2 issues that I was hoping/expecting. Instead, my back started complaining quite heavily when I topped about 20. My hands were starting to hurt with blisters on the way down, but I still made it. Next time I'm going to do this with a 16 kg and do high-swings instead. That should cause more of an O2 problem.

Yoga

2010-01-05T21:42:00.001+01:00

Workout:

Yoga, 60 minutes.

/Simon

The Metcon death.

2010-01-04T17:41:00.002+01:00

For time:
75 Swings (24kg), 50 Thrusters (20kg), 30 Pullups
Rest 2 minuter
50 Swings, 25 Thrusters, 20 Pullups
Rest 2 minuter
25 Swings, 15 Thrusters, 10 Pullups

I thought I had a decent grip.

I don't.

21 minutes and 50 seconds. I could have done better, sure... but this was painful enough.

/Simon

10-20-30!

2010-01-03T18:18:00.003+01:00

WO:

10x KB Snatch (5 each hand)
20x KB Push-press (10 each hand)
30x Squat

3 rounds for time.

Result:
24kg kb.
Times (splits)
1:38 (1:38 delta)
3:29 (1:51 delta)
5:45 (2:16 delta)
8:19 (2:26 delta)
11:08 (2:59 delta) (end time)

First and second rounds went unbroken, unrested at top speed. The third round was a little bit more difficult, breathing was very heavy and my shoulders and lower back/hips started to complain. During the squats of the fourth round I was definetly into the "not fucking comfortable zone". Having to force away silly thoughts of taking a pause or drinking water, the fifth round broke me. After five snatches I had to run to the bathroom because I thought my dinner was about to give way. Luckily I stabilized after a little while at the bathroom, giving me enough rest to finish the last round in a really bad time. I was aiming for less than 10 minutes. Perhaps next time.

I might be doing yoga tonight or wait until tuesday, not sure yet.

I'm slacking, 2/3 workout days so far this year.

/Simon

Goals 2010.

2010-01-01T17:42:00.002+01:00

I can't really do a good evaluation from my last year.

I had some goals, Squat 160 kg (not done, but I haven't tried 1RM'ing). Deadlift 200 (done), I added a goal to deadlift 220 but my back has been hurting bad the autumn so I haven't done 200 kg deadlift in a good while. I wanted to powerclean my bodyweight, done. I wanted to press 75 kg, done. Unfortunately my goals for this year was involving 100% barbells.

Looking back on the year that has gone, the first 6 months was heavily barbell-lifting based. I didn't do a lot of metcons, I didn't do a lot of O2 work. Considering that the year of 2008 was mainly focused on crossfit / gym jones, this was a big change for me. I've increased a lot of strength during that part of the year, legs, back, core and upper body.

The second part of the year has been almost entirely cross-fit oriented. I've started training at Crossfit Uppsala, which has changed my view on training as in how it should be used and how people should be inspired to train. My training with Crossfit has increased my upper-body strength a little, but it has increased my coordination, my flexibility in some joints, my mental strength, my endurance (BY ALOT), my pannben (my sheer will) and I have reached levels of pressing myself that I previously thought was impossible. I have realized the strength of training in a group and the joy and happiness of working out with other people. I have seen people come to the Crossfit Uppsala with little confidence in themselves and their performance. Within only a few months these people have shown and learned (much like I) how good they really are and they have become confident in their performance.

I can really sum it up with: Hardships, through horrible events or simply by pushing yourself hard in workouts, is better enjoyed with friends. Hardships strengthens the mind and combining it with workouts creates better people. Healthy people.

My goals for 2010 are few, yet many. Simple, yet hard.

I want to push myself to the edge of what my body truly can manage. I want to become a better person and a better athlete, in all senses that includes.

Concrete goals are:
235 kg deadlift.
180 kg squat.
85 kg press.
I want to be able to do one muscle-up before the year is over.
15 unbroken HSPU.
Clean 100+, Powerclean 110+.
Jerk 105+.
I want to do 30+ unbroken pullups.
I want to row 500m in less than 1 minute 25 seconds.
Fight gone bad at 350.
I want to do fran below 5 minutes.
OHS 100kg.
300 workout (unscaled) less than 20 minutes.
300 kettlebell meltdown in less than 16 minutes.
I want to improve my documentation-skills when it comes to my training. (this blog is a good start for me).

Last but not least:
Snatch, 90 kg. (fuck yeah!)

Burpee Annie

2010-01-01T17:38:00.002+01:00

For time:

25 burpee, 50 situp
20 burpee, 40 situp
15 burpee, 30 situp
10 burpee, 20 situp
5 burpee, 10 situp

Results:
11:58. I'm quite satisfied with this time since I am still hungover when writing this. I thought that pukie was comming for a visit when I was halfway through the second round of burpee's. Somehow it just didn't happen. I continued to think "just another round of burpee's and then..." for every round that went by. Fortunately enough I managed to avoid the visit totally.

I hadn't planned training today but fortunately Martin phoned me up and explained that there is no excuses. He was correct, as usual. Even though he (nearly) had me convinced, I was searching for reasons not to work out. I had a small cold so I was letting that get to me until the thought struck me:

Start a new year with a resting day? Are you crazy Simon? People might think you are soft.

Since I have an image to stand up to, I HAD to work out. It's all about the image, afterall.

Another workout that I wanted to forget.

2009-12-30T09:00:00.004+01:00

... was yesterday.

I didn't put it up because I waited for the results and once I got them I had forgot about putting up a blog about it.

"Filthy fifty":
50 Box jumps (60 cm?)
50 Jumping Pullups
50 Swings (16 kg kb)
50 Walking Lunges
50 Knees to elbows
50 Push Press (20 kg)
50 "Superman"
50 Wallballs (8 kg)
50 Burpee's
50 Double Unders (Modified to 150 squats).

FOR TIME!
Results:
35 minutes 36 seconds.

All went well, the jumping pullups were really rough on the grip and my upper body. 50 regular pull-ups would have gone a lot faster. The swings was split into 20/15/15, lunges unbroken. The knees to elbows took a lot of time. By the time I was here, my grip was so weak that I could barely hold on for one KTE. The push-press was rough of the breathing but the superman's gave me a little bit of a rest. The wallballs is where shit hit the fan. Walking into the burpee's, I could barely muster one. I couldn't get to my feet in any reasonable manner and instead I had to "walk" up. The 150 squats was an unpleasant meeting with mr. pain in a physical form.

I can do better than 35 minutes, my goal for this excersize next time is below 30 minutes... My body today feels quite sore in my legs and in my traps. I'll rest for today and then do something awful tomorrow.

/Simon

Late christmas workout.

2009-12-27T19:46:00.002+01:00

My xmas workout was supposed to be a 9 minute AMRAP with
12x unbroken burpee's
24x unbroken squats.

But I didn't want to hassle my neighbours this late at evening, so instead I did another workout that I read about on crossfituppsala.com. The workout is from crossfit nordic:

For time:
20 pushups
30 situps
60 squats
20 pushups
60 squats
30 situps
20 pushups.

Time: 6.20. I did the situps un-anchored. I wished that I had done them anchored, that would have given me like 30 seconds or probably even more.

Now I'm going to do my first yoga-workout.

/Simon

The day before the doppardag!

2009-12-23T21:48:00.003+01:00

And Martin checked if I wanted to go to him to the gym because he needed "moral support". It ended up with me doing the workout with him... of course!

WO:
AMRAP in 15 minutes:
10x Burpee
10x Push-up
10x Ring-dips

Ugh! My shoulders were wasted only halfway through this workout.
Result: 141 reps. (5 rounds - 9 ring-dips). I started to get the kipping part of ring dips working halfway through. That helped me a lot. I probably missed a few of the dips but I passed them anyway. I wasn't worried that I wouldn't get worked out, and I'll definetly be better next time I try this workout.

It felt great comming out and doing a workout today, specifically since I thought I wouldn't.

Thanks Martin!

All alone in the gym...

2009-12-22T15:11:00.003+01:00

... they didn't show up!

So I did some other stuff (no metcon though):

Technique training for clean (not powerclean)
then
1RM clean.
then:
3x 10 ring-pushups
3x 5 behind-the-head pull-ups.
3x 5 good-mornings.

This turned out to be a real gym-workout.
Results:
Clean:
40 kg, 50 kg, 60 kg, 70 kg(fail), 70 kg, 75 kg, 80 kg, 85 kg (fail). Stopped. I came below the 85 kg but was too deep to get out of the squat.

I felt like I really evolved in my clean. I no longer "powerclean and squat", instead I ->DIVE<- under the bar. This made a HUGE differance. The hook-grip really made a big differance when comming up on the higher loads. I didn't think I would hit 80 kg but it went so easy. I definetly think I can go a lot higher in this, 80 kg wasn't heavy at all - it's mostly about technique at this moment... and guts. The 70 kg fail was 100% because I was too scared to dive under the bar.

I did a lot of other movements too but they were mostly warm-up etc. I wasn't really aiming for a rough workout this day anyway. The 85 kg fail in the clean made me feel my back aching a little bit and now I feel a little bit of pain in it. It's certainly not 100% healed and I'm not sure what to do about it. I'm hoping that stretching my hamstrings will help. I'm slowly stretching them out but I'm still really really stiff in them.

Did the good-mornings with 60 kg's in hope of them getting stretched out and working them out a bit. It sure feels like that now!

Fight fight fight!

2009-12-22T08:31:00.004+01:00

Yesterday:
Workout:
"Fight gone bad"
3 rounds of:
1 minute 8 kg wallballs
1 minute 32 kg sumo deadlift highpull (35 kg rxd'd)
1 minute boxjumps (50cm I think?)
1 minute Push-press 35 kg
1 minute rowing (count kcal)
1 minute rest.

Result:
311 PR! (old was like 257 or something).

Yee-haw. It felt great. I paced the rounds aiming for avg 25 first, avg 20 second and avg 15 third. Next goal is to push all rounds avg over 20 with first round at 100%.

I really pushed myself hard this time, which felt great since I hadn't worked out for 6 days. Didn't feel the back much... a little, yes. But not much.

Today I'll take it kind of chill, going to instruct a couple of guys from work.

/Simon

Back pains, sickness and other bad excuses.

2009-12-18T10:07:00.002+01:00

I haven't been working out since monday. I'm not sure what I did during fran, but something hurt my back a little which has caused me to chill down from training for a few days. My back still hurts a little, though I should probably be good enough to start training tomorrow or so.

I've also been sick (wed/thur), sleeping TONS. Hopefully I'll be back to training tomorrow.

I've been looking a lot at clean, jerk, snatch, powerclean etc movies. I think I've read a lot about interesting techniques and I'm interested to put them to the test as soon as possible. Specifically I want to try out the techniques for cleans.

I've also ordered a book called MAQ, or Muscle Action Quality that I think will help me with my back and keeping some of my muscles in a better state (less stiff/tight).

Simon

When I get older, meeting the Fran! Twenty years from now...

2009-12-14T13:52:00.004+01:00

So today I met Fran.

"Fran":
21 x 40 kg Thrusters
21 x Pullup
15 x 40 kg Thrusters
15 x Pullup
9 x 40 kg Thrusters
9 x Pullup

Results:
6:34 (PR!) - Last one was 7:30, best one is 7:14.

I shouldn't whine. The numbers speak for themselves. 56 seconds improvement from last time.

Home-training

2009-12-13T18:44:00.002+01:00

So I worked out some at home today. Didn't work out on friday, work was too buzy and saturday was all booked up. I was actually planning on working out on friday when I got home, but I was home at 23:30 sigh.

Anyways, today I just had to do something. I was hoping I could get a good workout at home but I'm not sure I did.

Warmup / workout:
4 rounds of:
25 squats with 20 kg vest.
AMRAP pullups with 20kg vest.

10 TGU's (5 each arm) for time
5 ring-pushups
5 ring-dips
20 KB high-swings
20 KB snatch
10 inclined ring-pushups.

I'm not sure what I was going to do, so I just improvised.
Results:
The first round was actually 30 kg vest but I lowered it since I could only do 1 pullup with it. The 3 remaining rounds were 4-3-3 on pullups. The TGU's went through in 4:53 - I really don't like doing TGU's with KB's. It hurts my lower arms in a way I don't like (not in a good way in other words). I know now not to underestimate KB high-swings/snatches. They're really rough on the O2. Inclined ring-pushups was fun, just to try :)

This is getting sad...

2009-12-11T15:36:00.003+01:00

I forgot to post yesterday as well sigh.

Start:
Crossfit warmup

Then:
Partner-workout
work 30 second, swap, repeat.
8 rounds of (four each) pullups
8 rounds of (four each) pushups
8 rounds of (four each) situps
8 rounds of (four each) squats

Result: 531 ( Simon: 273, Herman: 257 ).

I loved the workout. It was tons of fun. 18 pullups in the first run felt good. I think I managed to put up roughly 60 pullups in total. It was tough! And today I can feel my muscles aching a bit here and a bit there which is a good feeling.

I haven't worked out anything today, saving it either for training tonight (if I have the time) or taking a rest-day (tuesday was a semi-rest day).

Two days!

2009-12-09T13:52:00.003+01:00

I forgot to post yesterday, so here it all comes:

(yesterday)
Warmup

Workout: Tabata intervals: 8x squats, 8x pushups, 8x situps. Technique training.

No results (was buzy helping other people with their workout so couldn't keep track).

I could have pushed myself much much harder, but was trying to "instruct" people a little bit and push them while we were doing it. I'll take this one as a rest day.

Today:
Warmup

Workout:
Workup heavy 3RM press (barbell).

Metcon:
10x KB Push-press (10 on each arm)
10x knee's to elbows
3 rounds.

Results:
Press: 70 kg went up 2x3 times. I felt powerful and the 70 kg's weren't heavy at all. I felt like 72.5 wouldn't be difficult on 3x, 75kg would probably have gone up without too much worries (but just once). Wanted to try but I screwed up and forgot to put on extra weights, sigh.

Metcon:
I think I did it in 3:41? 4:41? Not sure heh, can't remember. I did only 8 reps KB though but I did them with 32kg so it felt good. Looking forward to the results from this upper-body training.

Simp

Kickup, push and use those legs!

2009-12-07T14:40:00.004+01:00

Back to crossfit Uppsala's training after a weekend of hanging around with finnish people, which naturally included alcohol. So now I'll try to be sober until new-year. We'll see how that goes heh.

Workout:
Warmup + OHS technique training.

AMRAP 10 minutes:
10x (2x kickup + 1x pushup).
10x "Prison lunges". Left+right is 1 rep.
10x OHS with empty hands.

Result:
3 (almost 4) rounds. The kickup's were a LOT rougher than I first thought. Sweating like a beast I really tried to push it into four rounds but I really couldn't muster it even though I only had 5 OHS when the time ended.

Felt good though, good workout for the legs and lacking oxygen. I could probably have mustered through the 4 rounds if I would have paced it a little better. A good start on the week.

/S

20 minutes of torment.

2009-12-04T19:15:00.003+01:00

Maybe it's becoming a cliché but I don't care. This time it hurt.

Workout "Kettlebell meltdown 300", 24 kb kettlebell:
25 V-ups
50 Snatch (25 each arm)
25 Push-ups
50 Swings (2h, high-swings)
50 Burpee's
50 Clean & Press (25 each arm)
50 Mountain Climbers

Source:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRpbM9nzDcM

His time: 11:41. My goal was below 20 minutes and with high-swings instead of the ones that he does (he does VERY low swings).

Result: 19:59! I had no looking at the mobile phone but it just ended up that way.

I -could- have pressed myself harder on the burpee's. They took over 6 minutes and I should be able to reduce a minute soley on that part. I spent 20-30 seconds running for water. I wasn't warmed up. These are all poor excuses for reasons why I didn't do "better". I'm not trying to blame away my time, really - I'm just making notes for the future. I could probably improve the push-ups but that's so little time. Maybe gain a little time on the clean&press and on the swings. Split c&p into 5's. Split swings into 20/10/10/10, split the snatches into 10/10/10/10/5/5. The burpee's were at a low pace and just doing them.

God I hate burpee's.

Simon

Yesterday... all my troubles seemed so far away!

2009-12-04T13:43:00.002+01:00

No seriously,

I forgot to blog yesterday.

Workout:
Crossfit warmup
( 2x10-15 reps of)
OHS
Situp
Pushup
Lunge
Pullup
Superman

Workout:
AMRAP 15 minutes:
2x10x 1h KB swing (20kg)
2x10x Lunge
10x Situps
20x Squats

Result:
6 Rounds, 8 squats away from 7.

The lunge+squat combo (was supposed to be 10x Double unders instead of squats) was really rough on my legs. It was a really good workout though. It was a long time ago I had that much issues with keeping up the workout due to my legs not managing to keep up.

I'll try to workout today but there are a lot of things trying to block up that possibility right now.

Cheers
/Simon

Meh I suck, but the hip is better :)

2009-12-02T05:06:00.001+01:00

20091201 - Alcohol Sucks (so does eating bad and general bad habits)

Warmup: Jarovek Complex

Workout:

1 Min Max Rep Burpees = 21

3 rounds 4 second negative chinups : 5, 4, 3

Metcon:

3 x max burpee's is goal in burpees, each minute 10x high KB swings (50 lb) and as many burpees as possible.

Result: 10 swing / 11 burpee, 1 min rest, 10/7, 1 min rest, 10/8, 1 min rest, 10/8) fail time: 7:06

Not at all happy with my performance, but I was so smoked that I couldn't do anything. I think this is the result of having a few weeks off to let the hip heal, as well as some bad diet. I'll just keep at it and improve.

Sleepy in the morning, sweaty during the day!

2009-12-01T14:55:00.003+01:00

Missed my morning-training today due to falling asleep lately, so I took the opportunity to try out a gym near my work.

5 Rounds of:
5/5/3/3/1 (dependant on round) deadlift
AMRAP HSPU

Then:
3x 50 burpee's for time (rest 3 minutes between sets).

Results:
DL: 100/120/140/140/140 (did 5/5/3/3/3). There was no more weights in the gym.
HSPU: 4/4/4/3/3

Burpee's:
4:31 / 4:47 / 4:34

The air in the gym started to be really bad when I started with the burpee's. There were a bunch of people there training martial arts and the place is really small (can't do overhead stuff with barbells, I touch the roof when I do burpee's). This made the breathing a lot more harder. Still it felt pretty good, I wanted to get below 4:30 in all sets but never really succeeded. I can probably get it down below 4:30, maybe down towards 4:00 if I have someone there pushing me.

Fun workout!

Alcohol sucks.

2009-11-30T14:00:00.003+01:00

These are the results from the last few days. Since I've been to finland, I haven't been able to post results on here.

20091130:

Max rep burpee's in 1 minute.

3 rounds of 4 seconds negative chin-ups maxrep

Metcon:

3x previous max-rep burpee's is goal in burpee's.

Each minute do 10x high-swings and as many burpee's as possible. When the total number of burpee's have accumulated to the goal, note the round it was completed in.

Results:

25 burpee's in 1 minute.

Chin-ups: 5-4-4

Metcon:

8-8-7-7-7-7-6-6-3-0-(5 swings)-(0 swings)-8-8

I think that was how it was split up, looking at it now I think I might have misscalculated my rounds if it wasn't 14 rounds that was my result.

Results:

Burpee's went fine. I should be able to press out 26.

Chin-ups were nasty.

The metcon was a failure. I had a goal to keep 8 burpee's per round for the first 5 rounds and then move down to 7 to split it out at 10 rounds. This was obviously not something that I succeeded with. At a certain point I just couldn't hold it out anymore and my burpee's went to zero and I needed to rest. Looking back at it now, I rested more than I needed. I could probably have done the 10 swings that round and then just rested a round. Something like that anyway.

I want revenge.

20091129:

Rest day

20091128:

5 rounds of 50 lunges, 30 situps.

Results:

Simon: 13:07

Seidi: 12:54 (2 rounds of 30 lunges, 20 extra-lunges at the end)

We were both hungover from a rough evening the day before. It felt great comming away and doing something healthy.

End notes:

Getting really drunk on the friday evening was really unbeneficial for my training. I knew that I would probably feel it for a day or two. I think I can do a lot better than what I did today and I blame it on being an idiot and drinking (too much) alcohol on the friday. I have one more weekend of alcohol (next) and then perhaps new-years eve. Other than that I don't see any occations to drink alcohol in the future, which makes me a happy bear.

/Simon

PR comes and it droppa de bombs!

2009-11-26T14:07:00.002+01:00

Today was another awesome day at the crossfit gym! Today we started out with some ring-dips with slowly going down and trying to explode to get to the top position. I'm not really strong enough to get those explosive... yet!

Workout:
3 rounds of:
20 high-swings (24 kg kb)
20 frontsquats (24 kg kb)
20 burpee's

Old result 12:53 (I think, not 100% sure on exact time).
Results: 11:19 (PR!)... I'm not exactly 100% sure about this time either, they could be a few seconds off. I'm certain that I improved by more than one and a half minute. That means that I've improved like 12-13% in the last 2 months. It felt good, I pushed myself hard and even though I really needed to go to the bathroom I could get it all through. A few seconds extra rest here to focus on clearing the other "needs" but I don't think my results would have been noticably different if I have had no worries to think about.

We rounded off with 3x maxrep strict pullups.
Results: 11 - 7 - 5. Not completely satisfied with these results. I should probably be able to pull 15 as a top-rep on these. Going to add some extra strict pull-ups during next week to compensate for those.

/Simon

Back in the Saddle Again

2009-11-25T14:56:00.003+01:00

Lightish day, getting back into this again. The iliopsoas has relieved some and with it, the back pain is gone. still a bit of pain in the neck, but things are looking better :)

Warmup: Jarovek x 2, OHS training

METCON:

AMRAP 8 minutes:
10 squats
10 swings
10 push-ups

@45 lbs, 7 rounds in 7:45

5x 45 lb 1 hand dumbell powersnatch R/L

some kip training (finally have a bar high enough to kip)

And that's all folks. Nothing too crazy

In the routine, makin' progress!

2009-11-24T09:42:00.003+01:00

Today was a rough day. Up 5 in the morning, away to Uppsala to get back into the morning-training business!

Warmup.
Technique training OHS.
Then:
"Introduction" or something was the name of it:
AMRAP 8 minutes:
10 squats
10 swings
10 push-ups

Results:
OHS technique training was needed. I only went up to 60kg (3 reps) but I felt my stability and technique improve. I'm getting better at locking out the bar with active shoulders/neck which makes the entire move feel more stable and reliable. I could probably PR this excersize with quite an improvement next time.

AMRAP. Last time we did this one (first time at crossfituppsala ever) I did 24kg normal swings and I did the push-ups on my knee's. This time it was high-swings and real push-ups. Result was 7 rounds, I think it was equivalent to my last result - although scaled differently. The workout felt great although I was a little bit sore in my shoulders/back from yesterday. I'm going dancing tonight as well, so that'll be even more workout! :)

Simon out!

Update

2009-11-23T15:29:00.002+01:00

Hey all (and by All, I mean Simon and friends),

Just wanted to update. I've been doing light cardio and trying to figure this hip thing out. Good news, the tennis ball massage technique is magic. I think I've located the source of the problem - a really upset iliopsoas. Anyway, I've been working on it for about 24 hours and my back and neck pain is starting to dissipate. I think that today I'll be able to do something light, keep up the massage and re-evaluate tomorrow. Hopefully in the next few days I'll be back on track.

<3, AP

Cindy, the second date.

2009-11-23T14:01:00.004+01:00

Warming up with:
10 - 8 - 6 - 4 - 2
Airsquat + "the worm".

Then:
Work up heavy 3RM deadlift

Then:
"Cindy":
AMRAP 20 min:
5 pull-ups
10 push-ups
15 squats

Results:
DL: 40 - 70 - 100 - 130 - 150 kg

Cindy:
16 rounds, 2 squats away from 17. (PR). My old was 15 rounds (thought it was 14). So the improvement was nearly 2 rounds, which is really good I think. Next time I guess my goal is 18 rounds.

Everything felt good today, I regret not pushing it to 17 rounds but a PR is a PR and I'm happy about it.

/S

Proud owner of a new KB!

2009-11-22T15:15:00.002+01:00

So I bought a 24 kg (1 & 1/2 pod) kettlebell yesterday.

Fun fun, I also bought a pull-up bar to use in my apartment. The problem was that I had to carry the stuff home today together with 2 backpacks of stuff, plus some other stuff.

So the "workout" was 1000 steps with all of that crap, plus the stairs. It was heavy as hell on my neck/grips. I also did some pull-ups and chin-ups, although nothing impressive. I might give it a go with 3x3 or 3x5 HSPU's today!

That's it though :(

/Simon

Upper body workout

2009-11-20T20:50:00.003+01:00

Another day, another workout. As it should be.

Workout:
Work up heavy TGU on both hands.
Rest 3 min.
3 x AMRAP dips (until failure), rest 3 minutes between sets.
3 x 15 pull-ups (unbroken), rest as needed between.

For time:
15 - 12 - 9 of
Burpee's, knee's to elbows.

Results:
32.5 kg right hand TGU, 32.5 failure 2x on left hand. It is very obvious that my technique is different between my hands. 32.5 kg wasn't really that rough on my right while nearly impossible on my left.
Dips: 24, 19, 15.
Pullups: Unbroken, unbroken, 5+2+quit. I had wounds in my hands from previous blisters and going into set three, the wounds couldn't hold it anymore and started bleeding. I tried going for the third set, but after 5 repetitions it was hurting too much to continue so I gave it another attempt but that didn't work. Then I quit.

Metcon:
5 minutes 43 seconds.

The time was so-so. My burpee's were killing me due to the previous tasks. The KTE was really rough too since my grip was dead and my back was also tired. I could probably do this in below 5 minutes without blinking if I had started with it ;) I never rested though, I did it all in one rush and going into the 9'ers my pulse was topping up at max. I didn't have much issues with the pannben, it was mostly physical this time. That feels great.

Simon out!

Pannben.

2009-11-19T15:28:00.002+01:00

Yoyo! Had two days rest since I was so totally sore from the last 2 days of workout.

Today was time for some real pannben though.

This is how it turned out:

AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) in 10 minutes.
One round is:
10 high-swing 24 kb kettlebell (1 & 1/2 pod)
10 box-jump @ 60 cm
10 situps.

Result: 8 rounds.

I'm very proud over this result. I pushed myself really really hard and I felt that I left the comfortable zone at roughly round 3. At round 5 I was just determined to pull 8 rounds since my partner that did 8 rounds before me was just something I had to match.

It was fun, loads of fun. Hard, rough. The boxjumps are horrible! Horrible horrible HORRIBLE!

Cheers!

Day 2: The mental blockade

2009-11-16T15:14:00.005+01:00

I was planning on resting today, but Martin said I should train... so I did!

Today, was 'Barbara'. She's a nightmare.

20x Pullups
30x Pushups
40x Situps
50x Squats
... 5 rounds!

Results:
Round 1: Below 4 minutes (3:53 or something). Pullups 10+5+5, the rest pretty unbroken.
Round 2: Just above 6 minutes. Pullups 5/5/5/5, pushups were harder this round.. broke into several sets. I started feeling my lower legs on the end of round two, which caused me to give up a little on round 3:
Round 3: Just above 8 minutes. Broke everything into smaller parts, my lower legs started cramping. I was whining a lot too. I smashed my shin into the pull-up bar this round, causing me to bleed a little.
Round 4: Cut down push-ups to do them on the knee's. Cut down my squats to 25 instead of 50. Still just above 8 minutes.
Round 5: Pull-ups done with rubberband, push-ups done on knee's but mentally I came back here and pushed through on 6 minutes. Did the situps/squats unbroken and just ignored the lower legs even though they cramped a bit. I was probably dehydrated which could have caused the cramps so much.

Generally I'm terribly unsatisfied with my results. I should be able to push through this one with all rounds below 6 minutes, but somehow I just couldn't put my mind to it during round 3 and 4. I wanted to give up and it all felt like it sucked ass. I did get back on the 5th round, starting to think about "This is where I want to be, this is what I want to do". I need to get back to my mental level from before my sickness... also I need to get back to my physical level from before my sickness :) I should be back in my old shoes within a week or so.

/Simon out.

I'm back!

2009-11-15T15:50:00.003+01:00

Finally! After waaaayyy too long I finally felt good enough to go do the gym!

I think I did a mistake by not eating before going there... as in I hadn't eaten anything that morning. Oh well, I did ok I think.

Workout:
Warmup Javorek Barbell complex(es) (Thank you Javorek)

Squat:
Work up 3 x 5 squat.

Then:
"Power-Grace" (I thought I was doing grace but I did powercleans instead of cleans :( )
30x 60 kg overhead anyhow for time.

Then:
3 RM Press (Should probably have put this before the grace)

Then:
Max rep pull-ups

Results:
Squat: 120kg x 3, 125 kg x 3 reps, 4 sets.
Power-Grace: 06:51 (Splits: 10 rep 1:35, 5 rep 1:38, 5 rep 1:19, 5 rep 1:24, 5 rep 0:55)
Press: 3x 60 kg, 3x 65 kg, 3x 67.5 kg, 3x 70 kg, 2x 72.5 (second was a fail)
Pull-ups: 18.

Comments:
Squats felt good. The last set was painful and I know that I'll have problems walking tomorrow. Next time I should be able to do it 5 sets 4 reps at 125 kg, that's my goal anyway. I should accomplish that next week.

Power-Grace: I can do better. The last 5 reps showed my potential and I can probably keep that up much better and longer. I could blame it on my first workout after 1.5 weeks away, but I won't. I can do better but I didn't, there is no excuse. If I manage 10 reps in 1:35 and then keep up 1 minute / 5 reps, that would take me well below 6 minutes. Next time I do this workout, I will succeed with that goal.

The press felt good. I didn't think I'd do a 3x70kg after the 30x clean/jerk on 60kg... but I did! It felt so good I even had to try on 72.5. One press was fine, the next was a no-go. I feel like I can press 75, maybe even 77.5 which is my PR from over 6 months ago. It's fun to see that I'm nearly as strong on the weights now as I was back then, considering that my o2/acidtolerance is WAY better. Not to mention that I have my old pullups back... 18 is ok. Next time I'm over 20, no question about it.

Feels good being back! Hopefully I won't be too sore to work out tomorrow, but I'm afraid that I will be... heh.

Turkish what?

2009-11-11T02:56:00.003+01:00

A: 30 x 35 lb (16kg) turkish get ups for time: 10:28
K: 30 x 25 lb (11.4kg) turkish get ups for time: 8:20

A: 40 x 35 lb 1 hand power snatch (20r/20left)
K: 40 x 25 lb 1 hand power snatch (20r/20left)

A: 3x3 weighted pullup @ 45 lb (20.45kg)

Felt ok today. still my hip/lower back complex isnt right :(

Peace!

Sick etc

2009-11-10T11:39:00.000+01:00

I hope to be back soon!

Swing and Squat

2009-11-07T21:21:00.003+01:00

Warmup: Jarovek

Workout: 3 RM Squats

Daisy: 65x6 75x3 85x3 95x3 95x3
Aaron: 135x6 225x3 245x3 245x3 245x3

* I only went to 245 because my hip/lower back right side (sciatic) is still sore. Going to get it checked out. Perhaps have to stay off it a few days :(

Metcon:

30 seconds squats, 30 seconds rest, max rep swings, 30 seconds rest, 3 rounds

A: 32sq/25swing 26sq/24sw 33sq/20sw
D: 25/20 25/20 26/15

The 30 seconds rough after max KB Swings felt really gross. I am not at all satisfied with my swing number, but at the end I was totally smoked. I felt it in my sciatic again here too. Going to have to do some upper back intensive stuff the next few days and chill on the lower

<3AP

One of those time when you think it will be easy...

2009-11-06T17:51:00.002+01:00

I skipped going to the gym today since I felt lazy and had my delivery arriving late. That's right, I got my 30 kg vest today. What a beast it is... I carried the package up the stairs and I thought there had to be extra weights in there or something because it sure as hell felt heavier than a barbell with 10 kg's on it...

My plan was to do some home-excersizes with it to see how it worked out etc. First some views about the vest:
It`s a beast. 30x 1 kg sandbag weights in it doesn`t make it small. The strapping that holds it together between the back and the front is really crappy. It's some cardboard where the seem actually broke during my first excersize (yeah, shit). I don't mind it much tho, the strapping didn't fit well so I'd have to re-do it anyway. Plus I have to add an extra strap higher up just a little bit below the armpits because otherwise I can't do push-ups with it. Sit-ups is out of the question unless you just empty the back on it. There are 15 slots in the front and 15 slots in the back.

If you want a vest for metcons, this is not the one for you. 30 kg's is WAY too much for metcons anyway, trust me. You might want to use this one for short sprints if you fix the straps. Pullups, squats, etc. Just simply walking around with it is heavy.

So, to the workout:
Warmup: Getting the vest on. Getting the vest off. HSPU's. Getting the vest back on.

5 rounds of:
20 squats
10 lunges (5 with each leg)
3 modified pull-ups
10 good-mornings (releasing the straps so the front of the vesthangs down when you bend forward).
Remove vest
10x spartan push-ups (one hand near your shoulder, the other near your hip. Explode upwards, switch in mid-air so that the hand near the hip moves up to the shoulder and the one at the shoulder moves down to the hip.)

Results:
5 HSPU (PR)

All squats unbroken.
All lunges unbroken.
4 rounds of pull-ups, fifth round was 1 success 2 fails.
All good-mornings unbroken.
2 rounds of spartan push-ups unbroken, then 2 and stopped doing them.

The spartan push-ups were a lot harder than I thought... the biggest issue was that going into round 3 my shoulders were getting weary from the vest. Going in to round 4 I had so little energy that I was shaking in every excersize I did and I were sweating like a beast. Removing the vest feels like doing a hang-powerclean where the weight lands on your one shoulder. I also tried to work some technique on split-jerks and push-jerks which the vest is actually really well suited for... I also tried doing prison lunges or jumping lunges and had to break after doing 6 of them.

Now how much will I use this vest? Probably not enough for it to be worth the 1000 SEK I invested in it. I need to buy a real pull-up bar so I can do real pull-ups in my house, in which it might come handy for. It was really good for the squats... maybe 100 total squats was overdoing it a little bit, but they all felt pretty good. I`m looking into finding more uses for this vest, but I'm quite sure it's never going to leave the house unless I leave the weights here.

Split Jerk

2009-11-06T02:25:00.002+01:00

Warm up: Jarovek

Workout:
A: 50 Split Jerk @ 135 lb (61.36kg)
K: 75 Split Jerk @ 75 lb (34kg)
*10 knee to elbow every time the bar is set down or racked

result:

A: 16:31
10/6/8/6/8/6/6 60 knee to elbow
*couldnt do toe to bar because my quads flex something fierce and just hurts. did knees to elbows hanging

K: 10:40
18/12/12/12/11/10 60 knee to elbow

I feel my form needs work. i didn't feel explosive, and part of it is because I think my hip isn't 100%. This might be where my lower back pain is coming from as well....

Oww wtf?

2009-11-05T03:46:00.003+01:00

Yo. So did the following:

Warmup: 2x jarovek @ 25 lb dumbbells

Then:

Work up heavy DL fast: 3x205 3x295 3x295 3x295
*for some reason my back is really hurting today :(

Then:
work up heavy 2x hang power cleans: 2x135 failx155 2x135 2x135 2x135 2x135

Then:
5 rds 12x powersnatch, 10x burpee, 45 sec rest

result: only did 3 rounds. my back is killing me for some reason, and i think i didn't eat well so my energy is all screwed up.

1:30
2:15
2:20

Yeah don't know what's going on with the back, it feels really tender in the lower area... :(

Split Jerks... or attempt thereof.

2009-11-04T14:54:00.003+01:00

Fell asleep too late yesterday so I skipped the morningtraining. Tagged onto Martin that was going to the gym at lunch. I had been wanting to do this workout for quite a while, and today was the day!

For time:
50x Split Jerk @ 75 kg (from front). Every time you set the barbell down or rack it, you have to do 10 knees-to-bar.

I was hoping for a 10-10-10-10-10, but knew that it would be impossible. I had a guess that I would have to split it to 10-8-8-8-8-8, or similar.

Results:
10-8-5-5-5-5-6-6
+7x10 toes-to-bar.

Time: 20:19.

I recorded the movie, although only one of the toes-to-bar made it in since I didn't have the time to move the camera... thinking about it now I probably had the time to do it - but didn't think of it. Martin fixxed it once.

It was a great workout since I learned a lot. I learned how bad my technique is at the split jerk. I go down through my knee's instead of through my hips on the downward motion of the jerk. I also fail at jerking the bar correctly due to a too slow motion downwards and upwards. The movement must become more explosive in that of a hip movement that explodes upwards while throwing up the legs. What I do now is some bad version of a small thruster with a little bit of explosion in it. I think my technique improved a lot from the first warmup-set to the last movement. I still have a lot to learn about the movement and a lot to train. It's a good realization since I haven't really been doing a lot of jerks/split jerks due to them not "feeling right". They definetly feel better after this one.

I just have to add a bit about the pain that this excersize put me through. I have it recorded and I've viewed the vid partly and been looking a little bit on my excersizes. I'm going to try to get a damn vid-editing program running so I can fix them and put em up on the net.

/Simon

The uncomfortable zone.

2009-11-03T14:17:00.002+01:00

I bet Martin already used this title, but I like it and I'll use it anyway. I claim no originality by using it, though.

I missed out on the morningtraining. I just really had to sleep this night. Last night was a bit short on sleep so I caught it up this time by sleeping over 7 hours.

Workout:
Warmup (Thank you Javorek!) x 3. (Hell yeah!)

Then:
Work up to heavy DL fast (5-6 minutes).
Work up to heavy 2x hang-powerclean (5-6 minutes).

Then:
5 rounds of:
12x powersnatch @ 40 kg.
10x burpee's.
45 seconds rest.

Each round time is results.

Results:
Deadlift: 160 kg. Not overly satisfied with this result. I hit 150 without switching grip. Then did one more lift with my left hand supinated. The deadlift felt ok I guess. Didn't feel my back much... maybe a little. I think I should probably do a couple of workouts with some 120-140 kg DL's.

Powerclean: 85 kg. Failed attempt at 90 kg. I'm trying out the correct technique with how I hold the bar during the powerclean. It's difficult but I assume it's good in the long run.

Rounds (not including resting times):
1:26 (unbroken, unbroken)
1:59 (6/6, 8/2)
2:21 (4/4/4, sort of unbroken... I broke down on the floor all the time but never stopped).
2:28 (3/3/3/3, definetly NOT in my comfortable zone. I had people commenting this round at the gym)
1:59 (6/3/3, unbroken-ish).

I definetly broke a record in getting into uncomfortable mode. The last round was pain pain pain pain pain. I'll bring my camera the next time and photograph my eyes that were all blood-bursting from all the sweat that had been annoying my eyes. As I entered the second round I thought that this workout was from hell and that I deserved to burn in it. I kept telling myself that this is where I want to be. This is what I want to do - and it helped. I still have more to give, more to push - but it's getting better than ever before. Every workout I succeed in pushing myself harder and harder. I know I can do that workout with all the rounds below 2:00, maybe by pacing it a little bit and by using more PANNBEN.

Great workout. Definetly one that felt like it will bring me one step further towards being athletic and crossfit :)

/Simon

Fast and high effort today

2009-11-03T03:25:00.003+01:00

I must have caught your cold, Simon. I also have a sore throat and a bit clogged up. Also very sore from the Manmakers on Saturday :(.

First:

3RM Squats:
K: 95x6 115x6 115x6 125x6 (She has a hockey game tonight, so couldn't do the 3RM)
A: 185x4 225x3 255x3 255x3 (102.27kg)

*my legs were a bit wobbly. this is because of my hip I think. It's still a bit sore from pulling it on lunges last week....

Second: Metcon!

30 burpees (slightly broken at end)
10 pullups (4 second rest at 5)
50 wall ball shots at 10 lb (4.54kg) nothing heavier in the gym :(, so upped the # reps
20 pushups (unbroken)
30 situps (unbroken)
30 lunges (unbroken)

Time: 7:11 AP
Time: 7:23 KH - mostly unbroken imo

Wheee fun workout! Gave it tons of gas :) going to be early tonight <3

Faster, harder, unbroken!

2009-11-02T14:44:00.005+01:00

Even though my throat hurt a little bit and I still have some sniffles, I decided to go to the workout today.

Martin's time to put us through some new, fun, experiences.

First:
Work up Squat 3RM.

Result:
I came up to 130 kg today. Still unsatisfied with my squats. Maybe I should have gone for 140 instead of 120 -> 130. Next time I'll 3RM 140+. 130 wasn't "easy", but I felt like I could have pushed another 10 kg's without any problem.

Workout:

30 burpee's (unbroken)
10 pullups (unbroken)
30 wallballs, 8 kg (unbroken)
20 pushups (unbroken)
30 situps (unbroken)
30 lunges (unbroken)

Time: 6:36.

I rested a little bit too much between the sets. I could easily have cut 10 seconds between the burpee's/pullups, probably equally much between pullups/wallballs. The rest between wallballs and pushups was definetly needed, none of the rest was. I can push that time down below 6 minutes, next time!

It was a fun workout, I really enjoyed pushing myself a little harder on burpee's/wallballs/pushups than I normally do. I still feel like I have a lot more to push, which is a great feeling.

I ordered a 30 kg vest yesterday for working out. Think I'm going to buy a kettlebell as soon as possible as well. (I'm talking a lot about this but nothing gets done). More stuff for my home training! I need to get prepared until the summer, I must fix all the things I can possibly need before that. I need a couple of kettlebells, some rings, barbell+weights, pullup-possibility and some rings... The vest is a good start!

/Simon

Mostly rest day

2009-11-01T16:43:00.002+01:00

Freakin wore out today. Yesterdays workout was super taxing, but I really loved it :).

Workout: 1 RM Bench Press

K:
95x6
135x1
155xfail
145x1
145x1
145x1

A:
135x8
185x3
225x1
255xfail
245xfail
225x1
225x1 (I guess current PR)

I'm not satisfied with my results, but I guess they are what they are. I'm going to use this for my PR, as I have not maxed bench in years. Hopefully I am up much higher in the course of the upcoming months. In college my max was 255, which isn't amazing, but I'd rather be in the 300 range :).

resting the rest of the day. I feel ridiculously worked. Feels so good and so bad :). Sending u an updated pic simon :)

Man Maker + Man = Sweat Angels

2009-10-31T19:25:00.004+01:00

So today's workout was pretty gruelling. The thing is, I'm trying to wear Kristen out, but she's a higher fitness level than me. This turns into killer workouts for me, and hopefully good workouts for her. Anyway, can't wait till Steph jumps into the fray, so we can suffer together :). I may start calling this Hell on Earth, if I can ever make my workouts truly nuts. Anyway I digress.

Warmup: Jarovek Obv.

Workout:

1) Snatch (real snatch-squats), 1RM

K: 25x6 45x3 65x3 65x2 70x3 75x1/1/1/1 (4 fails)
A: 45x6 65x3 85x3 105x2 125x1/1 (2 fails), 65x1

*Going to review the snatch w/squats and see about form. These felt like we were not getting the form totally right, both of us, with slightly different issues.

2) 3x5 Heavy Squats

K: 65x5 95x5 115x5 115x6 135x6
A: 95x5 185x5 225x5 225x5

*kristen psyches herself out with the weight. She needs to focus on adding more weight, just a mental block, no big deal.

3) 30x Manmakers For Time

K: @30lb 12:52
A: @45lb 17:40 (PR)

*This was absolutely nuts

4) just some pullups

Popedog's beastiary

2009-10-31T00:57:00.003+01:00

Simon - you're a freak and I love you - thanks for the hardcore workouts to constantly challenge my body, and today, my mind :).

Warmup: Thanks Mr. Jarovek.

Workout: Thanks Simon :(

3 rounds for time:
40 M Bear Crawl
8/8 1 arm clean & push press

Aaron: 45 lb (20.45kg) 5:47.606
Kristen: 30 lb (13.63kg) 5:20.054

THEN

Workout:
25 burpee
30 x powerclean & jerk
25 burpee

Aaron: 115 lb (52.27kg) - 13:58
Kristen: 75lb (34.09kg) - 11:29

THEN: 1 RM bent over row (barbell)

Kristen:
75x3
115x3
135x3
155xFAIL
145x1
145x1
145x1

Aaron:
115x3
135x3

185x1
185x1
185x1 (Please update my PR for this, I didn't have form on my other PR :( )

Overall the workout was good. my hip was tender to start, and I couldn't jerk to a wide stance due to the tenderness. However, I didn't strain it additionally. It felt great. Wonderful workout. I was seriously breathing so hard and this felt like the hardest workout to date so far.

AP

"To be comfortable with the uncomfortable"

2009-10-30T10:14:00.003+01:00

... as OPT said.

Today I learned a lesson. I learned a lot about how I can push myself harder. This is how I learned it:

We started out by playing around a little bit with kettlebells. We had some new faces at the training, which is always great, so we had to go through the basic swing etc a little bit.

Workout:
3 rounds for time of:
40m Bear Crawl
8/8 one hand kettlebell clean & push-press.

Result:
24 kg 5 minutes and 8 seconds, I think. Not sure about the time as always, since I try to remember it by head.

Next!

This time I was going to do one of the Scandinavian Challenge's workout... but slightly modified!

The workout was 50 double unders, 30 clean and jerk (overhead anyhow) @ 60 kg, 50 double unders. Since I can't do double-unders (my lower legs have their fascias pooped up so I can't do that kind of excersizes or I go boom), I did burpee's instead!

Workout:
25 burpee's
30x powerclean & jerk (overhead anyhow) @ 60 kg. No dropping weight from top position - take it down without breaking the floor.
25 burpee's

Result:
Time 13 minutes and 8 seconds if I remember correctly.
Once I had passed through the first burpee's I went directly to the powercleans trying to bring atleast 2/3 out of the way. What I didn't really realize was the amount of lactate acid that had started to build up in my body, together with the lack of O2. The first reps were really rough, and I expected the overhead anyhows to be a total pain in the ass. I kept a pretty low pace, trying to take them in pairs in order to keep the same pace through all the 30's. When I had come to about 25 they were beginning to be easier and easier, so I could push the last 5 in a 3+2 with maybe only 3-4 seconds of rest between them. The final 25 burpee's were hell though.

It was during maybe the last 5-10 overhead anyhow and the burpee's I found myself able to push harder and harder. I felt that my potential was more than I put out. That's bad because it shows that I could have done better, and I could have pushed myself harder. I didn't. Although I did push myself harder during the last burpee's than I normally do during burpee's, I still feel like I have more to give.

The last couple of months of training has really put an edge into my mind to pull out that extra that I haven't done before. I feel a lot stronger, faster and durable than before - and I feel that I can do even better. I'm not sure that I've ever felt this good.

/Simon.

Rest day(s)

2009-10-29T14:34:00.003+01:00

Yesterday and today as rest days. The hip is a bit hurt, not sure what I should do about it. Here's an example of how it hurts. When I am walking, and my left leg goes forward, it's my right leg, in the front, just below the hip socket that hurts. Not sure if I pulled my quad up high on the lunges or what. Any recommendations on what I should do would be appreciated.

The pic was just for fun. The rifle I have is for hunting deer, it's pretty much the American equivalent of the FN-FAL. Just thought the pic would be funny.

So yeah I'm a bit nervous about the hip, it happened deep in my lunge, left leg forward, and it felt like a "pop" in the right leg just below the hip socket, but in the high upper quad. Any advice would be appreciated.

Meh

2009-10-28T15:21:00.002+01:00

Yeah 'meh', that's what I have to say about today's training.

Warm up: barbell complex (thank you javorek), squats, pullups etc.

Work up heavy squat.

3x5 Squat.

Result: 120 kg, 3x5. It felt like my legs were really hurting bad after the third set so I stopped. I was thinking about doing 5 sets but I haven't really done this heavy workload on my legs since a few months back so I decided to not push it too hard. I'll try to throw in squats again on saturday or sunday just to push those 5x5 120 or even 125 kg.

Snatch (real snatch-squats), 1RM.
Result:
10x 20kg
5x 40kg
3x 50kg
1x 55kg (PR, since I've never snatch-squatted before).
1x 55kg
Fail: 60 kg.

Man that was rough. More technique demanding than I first thought. Probably a little bit stupid to do snatchSQUATS after heavy squats, so I suggest doing this one before doing the squats. It wasn't really the squats that was the issue though, sure it was heavy on the legs but the problem was more in technique and actually getting in under the bar. So much harder than power-snatches (which I can do 60 kg in). It was fun tho, I really liked training this. More technique needed.

Tabata intervals; rowing.

Now this was interesting. I could set a set amount of time to run the machine at, but it could only do one round. My rest between the sets are vague at best. I reset the round, took 3 breaths and kicked the next round. I hope that was roughly 10 seconds.
Results:
108m
108m
108m
106m
106m
104m
105m
107m
Total: 852m (PR). Wow. Ow. Woooow. Ooooooooooow. It took me more than 4 minutes just to recuperate from this. I was sweating so hard that it hurt just laying on the floor with my eyes shut as hard as I could, the sweat was everywhere. One guy even came off his bike and asked if I was ok. I have to note, Björn and Martin have 844/845m. My goal was to beat them and I knew that I would if I kept an avg of 106 or more. I'm pretty proud over that, actually. heh. I wouldn't have been able to do that 2 months ago, I'm not ever sure I would have been able to keep an avg over 100.

Anyways,
Cooldown:
Spartan push-ups, 3x 10 (one hand on the "correct position", the other one at your belly button but further out to the side... if that makes sense).
Normal push-ups, 20.

No time or anything, I just felt like I needed to get better in push-ups, so I did push-ups with a little bit of variation.

Besides the rowing today felt like meh. It was unstructed and I probably should have planned the METCOM part a little better than just the tabata-rowing. Atleast I got out there, I failed waking up this morning so this was the replacement.

/Simon

My Neck, my back, my uhhhhh, just like that...

2009-10-28T03:07:00.004+01:00

Oh Simon how you work this spry 100 kg body of mine. Today I worked out with Blake and Dan. I was quite impressed by both guys. Blake is Steph's brother. He's really cool and a lot of fun to work out with. This guy is intense, funny, charming, shit, he has it all :) Anyway, enough about that.

Warmup: Jarovek complex

First:
Dumbell press, push press, push jerk.

Dumbell Press
Blake: 65x3 (29.5kg) 70x3 (31.8kg) 75x3 (34.0kg)
Aaron: 50x3 (22.7kg) 50x3 50x3

Dumbell Push Press
Blake: 80x3 (36kg) 80x3 80x3
Aaron: 65x3 (29.5kg) 65x3 65x3

Dumbell Push Jerk
Blake: 80x5 (36kg) 80x5 70x5 (31.8kg)
Aaron: 70x5 (31.8kg) 60x5 (27.3kg) 45x5 (20.5kg)

**my left shoulder started giving out and had to drop weight, I think both days of hard shoulder work in a row got a bit rough**

then:
Virtual Rope Climb, 3 sets of 6 rep pulls

Then, metcon:
3 rounds of
10xpushup+kickup (one pushup, one kickup, repeat 10 times)
10xOH 1h weight, lunge. (5 with left hand / right leg, 5 with right hand / left leg).
20xPull-up.

Blake Result: 6:37 - Total animal, 50 lb (22.7kg) on the lunges

Aaron Result: 9:03 40lb (18.2kg) on lunges **I skipped the last set of lunges because my hip popped pretty hard. Also my last 20 pullups were shit, mainly jump up and slow let downs. From yesterday and today, just so many pullups and was not able to do them well**

How you get eaten up, chewed to pieces and pooped out in 1 hour.

2009-10-27T09:39:00.002+01:00

I think Björn hates me, or whomever of him or Martin that wrote the last 2 days of workouts. Today was a new experience, for sure.

First:
Kettlebell (or dumbbell) press, push press, push jerk.

Do 3x3 press, 3x5 push press and 5x5 push jerk. (on each arm)

then:
Rope climb 4.2 meters (use your feet). 3 times.

Then, metcon:

3 rounds of
10xpushup+kickup (one pushup, one kickup, repeat 10 times)
10xOH 1h weight, lunge. (5 with left hand / right leg, 5 with right hand / left leg).
20xPull-up.

Results:
Started the press with 24 kg's. Then did the push-press with 24 kg's. Raised Push-jerks to 32 kg's. Felt like I could do the push-presses with 32 kg, so I did a 5 with each arm, 32 kg's push-press. My shoulders were burning at this point. All the presses were done with a few starters to warm up technique. I don't think I've ever push-pressed 32 kg kettlebells before. I feel like being close on doing presses with them.

The metcon: 9:26 or 9:36 or something. The oh-lunges was done with 24 kg kettlebells and it put strains on my shoulders that were quite the new experience. In the second round I couldn't press and barely push-press the 24 kg to position. I even failed the first attempt on my lunge just because my shoulder couldn't keep up with it. The pullups went a lot better than expected. Now I've done 130 pullups the last 2 days. I would be pretty furious if they didn't improve.

Maybe I should take a rest day tomorrow, or maybe I should just go on like I should. Like the machine I want to be.

/Simon out

Oh what a feelin' - when you're dancin' on the ceilin'

2009-10-27T01:12:00.003+01:00

Did Simon's last workout. Shout out - I <3 ya babe (Simon). Simon says workout. Popedog works out. Sheesh, still on the workout high from the metcon!

3RM Press / Push-press / Push-jerk

Press:
95x3 (44kg)
115x3 (52kg)
135x3 (61.4kg)
135x3 (61.4kg)
135x.5 (61.4kg)
135x3 (61.4kg)

Push-Press:
135x3 (61.4kg)
155x3 (70.5kg)
155x3 (70.5kg)
155x3 (70.5kg)

Push-Jerk (hey stop pushing me):
155x3 (70.5kg)
175x3 (PR!!!!! exceeds my 1 RM) (79.5kg)
175x1 (79.5kg)
175x1 :( (79.5kg)

***At this point my forearms are killing me, yikes.

Metcon:
3x room length (15M) walking lunge
30 pullups
2x room length walking lunge 2x50 lb (22.7kg)
20 pullups
room length walking lunge 35 lbs (16kg) overhead
10 pullups

Result: 8:32

** my last 7 pullups or so were jumping pullups trying to let the bodyweight down slow with deconcentric contractions, as I was no longer able to pull up....

**very happy with should press results, but I really need to get better at pull ups....

-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------

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1.5 scoops of your favorite whey protein
1/2 can (8 oz / .227KG) pumpkin filling (non sweetened, etc)
4 oz (120 ml) milk (mjolk)
13 almonds
dash of nutmeg
5 dashes cinnamon
4 ice cubes
and add splenda brown sugar (this is uber low cal) to taste

BLEND!
Eat!
YUMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Back to reality

2009-10-26T14:22:00.004+01:00

So after a weekend of chips, beer, whiskey and other horrible things... I only have one evening left of that kind of behavior.

Anyways, training is back into its regular schedule.

We started out today with:

3RM press / push-press / push-jerk.

I went directly for the push-press and skipped the ordinary press. Unfortunately, because of time, I didn't really have the time to maximize all of them. Results were 70 kg on the push-press and 90 kg on the push-jerk. I think I can probably go up 5-10 kg's on the push-jerk, and more on the push-press. Oh well, it felt good anyway - haven't done any heavy push-press / jerk recently.

The metcon part:
I'm not sure how long our room is, but my guess is roughly 10-15 meters.

3 x room length walking lunge.
30 pullups
2 x room length walking lunge holding 2x24 kg kettlebell's
20 pullups
room length walking lunge holding 15 kg overhead weight
10 pullups

Time: 6:38 (I think, somewhere around that anyway).

This workout was awesome. I really needed some pullup-training and I even did 10 before starting. I feel the pull-ups getting better and better, and I'm hoping that I can do 21 in a row soon to be able to improve the time on fran. Speaking of that, I'm hoping to do fran this week (maybe wednesday) as an extra-training. I feel like I can get a lot better than my previous time.

Oh well, back to work / life etc. Tonight I'm going to watch "Every second counts" with Martin. I'm really looking forward to that!

/S

HSPU PU SU SQUAT - Wheee

2009-10-25T15:45:00.006+01:00

Good workout today by our athletes!

AARON:

Workout:

maxrep HSPU (modified)
50 pushups for time. 1 minute rest.
75 situps for time. 1 minute rest.
100 squats for time. 1 minute rest.
maxrep HSPU

Results:
HSPU: 26 modified
Pushups: 2:07
Situps: 2:37
Squats: 2:27
HSPU: 25 modified

25 Strict form pullups 5x5x5x3x2x3x2
3x1 weighted pullups 50 lbs (22.7kg)

STEPH:

Workout:

maxrep HSPU (modified)

50 pushups for time. 1 minute rest.
75 situps for time. 1 minute rest.
100 squats for time. 1 minute rest.

maxrep HSPU (modified)

Results:
HSPU: 4 modified
Pushups: 4:53
Situps: 5:16
Squats: 4:16
HSPU: 2 modified

KRISTEN:

Workout:

maxrep HSPU (modified)

50 pushups for time. 1 minute rest.
75 situps for time. 1 minute rest.
100 squats for time. 1 minute rest.

maxrep HSPU (modified)

Results:
HSPU: 29 (modified)
Pushups: 2:01
Situps: 2:24
Squats: 2:27
HSPU: 26 (modified)

25 Strict form pullups 5x5x5x5x5

Training @ home!

2009-10-25T12:31:00.004+01:00

Hey!

So I weren't going to the gym today. I promised a couple of people that, so I just trained at home instead. I felt much better today than earlier, so I thought it'd be ok!

Warmup: burpee's, some tumbling around generally. Bit of handstanding.

Workout:

maxrep HSPU

50 pushups for time. 1 minute rest.
75 situps for time. 1 minute rest.
100 squats for time. 1 minute rest.

maxrep HSPU

Dead-hang pull-ups (sorta).

Results:
HSPU: 4 (PR)
Pushups: 2:21
Situps: 4:03
Squats: 2:28
HSPU: 1 :(

Dead-hang-pull-ups-ish: 25 (didn't measure time). They were done in my closet, area/room was restricted heh :P

I became sweaty, for sure!

It felt good just simply working out to keep form etc.

Tabata and New Deadlift PR

2009-10-24T19:25:00.002+02:00

Yo time to get down to business:

Warmup: Jarovek Complex

Workout:

Tabata Something else: 20 seconds work, 10 seconds rest, full 8 rd work-through on each exercise:

Aaron:
Pullups: 7/6/5/5/4/4/3/3
Pushups: 25/15/8/5/4/4/5/5
Situps: 9/9/11/11/10/11/10/12
Squats: 17/16/13/13/15/13/13/14

Total Reps: 302

Kristen:
Pullups: 11/8/6/4/5/4/4/4
Pushups: 17/15/12/10/12/10/8/10
Situps: 10/13/14/13/13/13/12/12
Squats: 16/15/14/13/12/13/13/14

Total Reps: 350 (Just wow)

Deadlift work:

Aaron:
135x6 61.3kg
225x5 102.3kg
315x2 143.2kg
345x4 157kg
385x1 (PR) 175kg
400x1 (PR) 181.2kg

Kristen:
135x3 61.3kg
135x4 61.3kg
135x4 61.3kg
165x4 75kg
185x3 84kg
200x1 (PR) 91kg

I would like some feedback on these deadlifts if possible. Want to make sure the form is ok...

And here's Kristen's..

Sorry that I couldn't get the video to rotate :(

Tabata yeah!

2009-10-23T02:26:00.005+02:00

So I had to get some encouragement to take on Simon's workout today. I wore the shirt, and I only break this one out for 110% efforts and balls to the wall type stuff. So far it has worked! So here's looking at you kids!

Warmup: Jarovek Barbell

Workout: Tabata Something Else

Each round 20 seconds max work, 10 seconds res, no extra rest anywhere:
8 rds pullups
8 rds pushups
8 rds situps
8 rds squats

****caveat, I assumed that these were to be cycled through, and not 8 rds in a row of each exercise****

Pullups: 10/7/6/6/5/6/7/7 *not sure how I got back up to seven
Pushups: 24/17/15/14/12/12/11/13
Situps: 16/13/15/14/14/14/12/13
Squats: 18/18/19/18/17/19/19/19

Result: 430 reps

I was sucking air hard pretty much the whole time, but for some reason my energy sustained even on the last round . My chest was starting to burn pretty bad, and my sustained heartrate over the 16 min was avg 187

Post Workout: Did some work for form on power cleans:

Frankenstein 45 lb 6 reps
Scarecrow 45 lb 6 reps
Whip Unders 45 lb 6 reps
Tall Muscle Cleans (no dipping) 45 lb 6 reps
Scarecrow Dive Under 45 lb 6 reps
Violent Shrug Dive Under 45 lb 6 reps
Full power Clean 45 lb 6 reps

I just kept it light, I'm a bit wore out.

"Tabata Something Else"

2009-10-22T14:30:00.003+02:00

This workout was quite something else. We started out with some ring-dip training. After we got what was comming for us.

Workout:
Each round is 20 seconds of maximum work, then 10 seconds resting. No extra rest anywhere.
8 rounds pullups.
8 rounds pushups.
8 rounds situps.
8 rounds squats.

Total all reps for all rounds to a number. That's your result.

Result: 51 + 59 + 69 + 111 = 290 reps.

Wow. Just wow. That workout was really fun / really rough. Hopefully I'll get good enough in my hands to increase the pullups to maybe avg 8-9 / round. My last few rounds were at 4-5 there which was quite heavy. The pushups were that bad as well, 6-4-5 on the last 3 rounds.

/Simon

Rest day + burger.

2009-10-21T20:34:00.004+02:00

Last night featured a Burger King Angus meal. It was foul and totally unsatisfying.

Today was rest day. It felt good actually, my right shoulder hurts slightly while fully extended. I ate thai food for lunch and now I'm chewing down tuc-crackers. Mmm, crap food.

I was going to write a long rant about how everything sucks but I don't have the time to do so. Instead I'll just put a list of what I was going to say. Probably easier for everyone involved.

People really are like the saying goes "ignorance is bliss".
Our school system sucks for not teaching us how to live a healthy and good life. This obviously connects with the above. "I don't need to train because I'm not dangerously overweight. I also eat good food from felix". Sigh.

You're never good enough until you're better than yesterday. Accelerated improvement is better than linear improvement.

Ignorance is not an excuse. It's up to you to know what's good for you and what isn't. You don't know well enough what's good for you.

Am I exaggerating? I am, but not enough.

/Simon

/S

Yo where the white women at!? AND Ladder of hell....

2009-10-21T02:40:00.005+02:00

Hey all of you people who read this (like 5-6 now, not bad! maybe more!). As you know, my name is Aaron, and I've come to steal all your white women (I hear you have lots of fine blondes in Sverige!).

No really, down to business now. I have the pleasure, and misfortune, of reporting the results today (and every day) of myself, and any cohorts who manage to join me. It looks like it's going to be Kristen jumping on the bandwagon for a while (what a nice Scandinavian name!).

Kristin's results today:

Workout 1: She did a bunch of stuff for biceps and shoulders in the morning. I don't have those details.

Workout 2: (Brace yourself, this is one high performing woman)

Jarovek Complex warmup 45 lb (20.5kg) barbell

Powerclean work:
4x 45 lb (20.5kg)
4x 65 lb (29.5kg)
4x 75 lb (34.1kg)
4x 75 lb (34.1kg)
4x 80 lb (36.36kg)

Ladder from Hell:
25 pullup (yes, real ones)
50 pushups
75 x 35 lb (16kg) kettlebell swings
100 squats
125 situps

TIME: 15:50 - Yeah, sick! Good job!

Aaron's results:

Jarovek Complex

Powerclean work:
3x 95 lb (43kg)
3x 135 (61kg)
3x 155 (70.5kg)
3x 155 (70.5kg)

**my shoulders started to get a bit sore, and my elbow is too, not sure why. shoulders from yesterday and today probably.

Ladder from hell (different order, because we only have 1 pullup bar):
75 x 50 lb (22.7kg) kettlebell swing
100 squat
125 situp
25 pullup (these really sucked today :( )
50 pushup

TIME: 16:08

Overall pretty happy with the effort and work today for myself. It helps to have someone hardcore in the gym doing the same workout. Mad props to Kristen for being hardcore :)

PS: Hey Simon, can you update my widget with the PRs from powercleans yesterday and bodyweight fran and ladder of hell? Thanks!!

Powercleans and the ladder of hell.

2009-10-20T09:19:00.003+02:00

Today we started with the powerclean. A move I've done a lot before and still I learned new things! Martin discussed the 2-pull or 2-stage powerclean and I can honestly say that I've been missing that part out a lot. I've been doing the accelerated pull from the bottom, which is wrong. I'm going to practice this a lot this weekend. I'll even try to throw it in before training on thursday if I can get there early (and if the gym is open). Since I also recorded myself powercleaning this sunday, I have a lot of things to go through and a lot of things to think about regarding my powerclean. I feel like I have a long way to go there and I feel like 100 kg's powerclean is an easy obstacle to pass at my next 1RM attempt.

Today's workout was something I named "Ladder of hell" after my breakfast.

Workout:
25x Pull-up
50x Push-up
75x 24 kg swings
100x squat
125x sit-ups.

Wow. Just WOW. I had my stomache cramping so many times at the sit-ups. The swings were brutal, my back and my shoulders were screaming so hard from yesterday's painful experience of 3x maxrep high-pulls on the 24 kg kb. The squats were a lot harder than normal - probably because of some soreness from yesterday 3RM squats.

My time? 18:09 or something, which isn't terrible. I can do a lot better. I could probably cut it down by 3+ minutes in the swings and the squats. Hopefully I'll get stronger in my stomache so I can muster the 125 situps in a better pace.

Tomorrow is rest-day, which I don't want to do. Oh well, you've got to rest! So I'll rest!

Bodyweight Fran deeds, done dirt cheap

2009-10-20T05:32:00.007+02:00

Sorry for the short post, my bosses boss is in town and gotta hit the hay.

Jarovek Complex Warmup

Workout:

OHS
5x 95 lb (43.18kg)
4x 105 lb (47.7kg)

*had to stop because my shoulders aren't flexible enough yet I think.

Then:
3-3-3-1-1-1 Powerclean:
3x135 (61.4kg)
3x155 (70.45kg)
2x165 fail (75kg)
1x165 (75kg)
1x185 (84kg)
1x205 fail (93.1kg)
1x195 (PR) (88.6kg)
1x200 fail (90.9kg)

LOOOL :)

Then Burpee Helene:

21+15+9 reps of pullups+burpees

Time: 10:20 (PR)

This time really sucked. But my heart was racing the whole time and effort was very very high. So I can't say I am disappointed...

I am sure I will do great in the future. Not sure why it's so hard on these high intensity timed workouts :(

Bodyweight: 100KG

Swing and squat!

2009-10-19T14:47:00.002+02:00

Hola!

Many new people at the gym today, which is excellent! Some new faces with previous experience of crossfit and some other interesting talents.

So first out today was 3RM squats. Unfortunately I only had one attempt at 100+ and that was 120 kg, it felt like a breeze. I think that I can probably squat 125 or so 5 sets 5 reps still, which means that I haven't lost anything in my squatting from the last couple of months of training (even though I haven't done any heavy squats other than frontsquats/OHS). It felt great! I'm going to try to do heavy squats on saturday or sunday.

Workout:
30 seconds of squats, 30 seconds rest.
Max-rep swings (24 kg high-swings).

Results:
Squats: 34 / 32 / 35
Swings: 50 / 15 / 25

The second round for swings really sucked. My back died really fast and I just had to let go. If I would have thought of putting more snatch into my hips during the second round I probably would have been able to do 25/25 for the last two. I'm not at all disappointed though. 35 squats in 30 seconds must be a new record for me.

/S

It's hard to think...

2009-10-18T15:26:00.004+02:00

Hey!

Martin (one of my trainers at xfit uppsala) told me to do this workout:

First
21+15+9 reps of pullups+burpee's

Then:
3-3-3-1-1-1 powerclean

Then:
Start at 40% OHS 1 RM, increase 5 kg / minute. 5 reps / minute.

I also added:
3-3-3-1-1-1 of standing rows (instead of "death by pull-up").

Results:
Well, I wrote it all down on a paper... that I thought I left at home, but I left it in my jacket and I accidentially picked up a shopping-list for yesterday that I thought I had forgot at home. What a mess.

Anyways, I did
21 - 15 - 11 of Pullup+burpee. Uhm yeah, that's right. Time? Lousy 7 min 4 seconds. I recorded a vid and noticed that I rested WAY too long. I probably could have done it in 6 - 6:30 if I just would have cut down on the resting. I'm not sure why I did it. I wasn't fully warmed up when I began, maybe that explains it.

Powercleans:
x3 - 60
x3 - 70
x3 - 80
x1 - 90
x1 - 95 (PR)
x1 - 97.5 (PR)

I probably should have tried for 100. I didn't. I'm stupid.

OHS:
35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70 (fail after 3).
That was rough. The 70's were heavy as hell and I couldn't get up on the fourth.

Standing row:
60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110 kg. PR? I think so :P It's the highest recorded one I know of anyway. It felt like I could do more, though.

A nice workout all-in-all. I could have performed better, which is sad.

Oh btw, recording your workout is awesome. I'll post the vid for the burpee-pullup later. (I have to shrink it from 1.3gb). But on the powercleans I noticed a few things about my technique that definetly could be worth improving and probably will extend to my deadlift as well! Awesome.

/S

Burpee Helene - Aaron

2009-10-17T02:49:00.003+02:00

I lay useless, like Austin Power's flaccid unit after his mojo being stolen - unable to do anything, as he was unable to perform with Heather Graham (man that would suck). I truly am wiped out and smoked like no other. Going into the workout today, I was already sore, not full of energy, and just plain wiped out. I considered taking a rest day, but then realized that hey, I have to do it, I just have to.

Warmup Jarovek Barbell Complex

Workout:

Burpee Helene:

3 rounds for time:

20 Burpees
21 Swings (50 lb kettlebell (22.72 KG)
12 pullups

Time: 14:48
Avg Heart Rate: 191

** This really hurt. I kept pressing myself any time I felt I could do a few reps. My heart rate was constantly 188-193 and it was so hard to keep pushing.

Deadlift Workout:

135 lb x 8 (61.36KG)
225 lb x 6 (102.27KG)
315 lb x 2 (143.18KG)
335 lb x 2 (152.27KG)

at this point my back was hurting and it felt like a good point to quit.

I can honestly say today I have 100% effort and I am pleased with how hard i tried. :)

Big five-55

2009-10-16T13:42:00.003+02:00

Today's workout is inspired from gym jones.

Piston press on 24 inch ball @ 25 kg each dumbbell (one rep is one with each arm)
Pull-up
Deadlift @ 80 kg.
Burpee
Goblet squat @ 35 kg.

10 - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 reps.

Time:
31 minutes 43 seconds.

I'm not entirely satisfied with my time. Too much people at the gym, had to run around to find spots to pull-up at. I did my pull-ups with the grip that Björn and Martin taught me to use. I'm finding it easier and easier to do, although still not easy enough. I had to split some of the pull-ups. I think I probably rested too much between the sets, but the burpee's went really good. I'm going to be so fucking sore tomorrow.

That's my friday!

/Simon.

KettleBell, Push, Pull, Squat - and recruit people to workout with you!

2009-10-16T02:10:00.002+02:00

Steph and I hit the gym eager for tonight's workout. Kristin was there as well and just getting started in her workout. Always up for a challenge, she agreed to do this workout with us. She's a bit of a freak, but in a good way, and performed quite well:

2 Rounds:
60 sec KB swing
90 sec rest
60 sec Pushup
90 sec rest
60 sec Pullups
90 sec rest
60 sec Air Squats
90 sec rest

(perform until failure, then perform at start of rest until failure)

Popedog:
50 lb (22.72KG) kettlebell swings

Round 1: (round 2)
KB: 37/11 (25/8), Pushups: 40/9 (27/11), Pullups: 11/7 (7/5), Squats: 30/20(28/13)

Steph:
12 lb (5.45 KG) kettlebell swings (she went uber light weight to get better at form etc.)

Round 1: (round 2)
KB: 29/20 (26/21), Pushups: 8/5 (9/7), Pullups (120 lb assist): 10/5 (9/5), Squats: 38/25 (34/17)

Kristin:
I think it was 35 lb kettlebell (16 KG) but might have been more?

Round 1: (round 2)
KB: 25/12 (20/12), Pushups: 25/13 (23/12), Pullups: 11/7 (12/5), Squats: 30/12 (34/17)

***I was impressed with the athletes today, very hard work throughout!

Then: 3 Sets of 3 press, 3 pushpress 3 jerks

Aaron:
125 lb: 2/2/1 (56.8KG)
105 lb: 3/3/2 (47.7KG)
105 lb: 3/2/2 (47.7KG)

Steph:
25 lb: 3/3/3
30lb: 3/3/3
30lb: 3/3/3

Kristin:
75 lb: 3/3/3 (34.09KG)
75 lb: 3/3/3 (34.09KG)
75 lb: 3/3/3 (34.09KG)

Swing, push, pull, squat!

2009-10-15T14:24:00.002+02:00

So today it was Martin's turn to put us through some rough pain. First we warmed up by doing some ring-workout. Worked on progress on stable position and L-position. It's a lot rougher than you first would think.

Workout:
1 minute max reps of KB swing (24 kg, high-swings)
90 seconds rest
1 minute max reps of pushups
90 seconds rest
1 minute max reps of pull-ups
90 seconds rest
1 minute max reps of squats
90 seconds rest
2 rounds.
The idea was to do as many as possible without stopping to rest. Remember that number and then try to do as many more as you could during the rest.

Results (I'm not 100% sure on all of these).
29 swings, 40 pushups (PR!) +1, 12 pull-ups +7, 45 squats - not sure how many extra.
Round 2: 30 swings, 20 pushups + 5, 7 pullups +5, 55 squats!

Rough painful experience. I really like to note how much I dislike their pull-up bar. I'm getting better at using it though, 12 in a row is the best I've done at their place. Hopefully I'll be able to do up towards 30 there soon!

Simon out!

Mr. Tabata kicks Popedog in the teeth!

2009-10-14T02:11:00.004+02:00

Good thing this isn't a podcast, cause who can talk with no teeth. I met Mr. Tabata today, and before he took me into the bathroom to rape me, he kicked me in the teeth. Not a nice guy.

Workout: 10 tabata-interval rounds: AMRAP 100%

20 seconds 55 lb Kettlebell Swings (25 KG)
10 seconds rest
20 seconds Burpee's
10 seconds rest

Results:
Top/Low swings: 12/11
Top/Low burpees: 7/4 (most rounds 5-6)

The burpees were worse than I thought, felt a bit brutal. Throughout the exercise my chest was burning and my lungs screaming for air, I about puked on round 9. I think I will do better next time, the kettlebell swings were pretty brutal but I managed to keep a high tempo it felt.

3 rounds x 6 reps: horizontal pullups with straight body to bar

Front Squats:

135lb x 5
155 lb x 5
155 lb x 2 (fail)
135 x 1 (sort of fail)

*My shoulders hurt pretty bad at the front today. My front squat form sucks a bit, but it will get better with practice.

Mr Tabata tells me to do burpee's and swings.

2009-10-13T09:52:00.003+02:00

Yo!

This time:

Front squats. Go to 5x5.
I only had the time to do 3x5 @ 80 kg because my trainer had to leave early today. 80 kg felt pretty good for front-squatting 5 times. I could probably go heavier to 90-100 kg and still be able to do 5x5, although I'm not sure that I would be able to keep my form as good as this workout allowed.

Workout:
10 tabata-interval rounds (AMRAP during the work part, 100% intensity):
20 seconds 24 kg kettlebell swings.
10 seconds rest.
20 seconds burpee's.
10 seconds rest.

Result:
Top / low swings: 15 / 10. Top / low burpee's: 8/5. I actually kept the swings at 11 for 5 rounds before I had to step down to 10. 24 kg was a painful experience to do so many of. The burpee's went better than I thought. I finished the last round with 7 of them. I could probably step up to 6 / 20 seconds on avg next time.

/Simpster

Clean and Jerks, etc

2009-10-13T02:23:00.003+02:00

Sup. So here we go:

25 clean and jerks at 150 lbs (68.18 KG)

*I was having problems front squatting with this as a part of the clean and jerk, so it was a strict clean and jerk without a deep squat, but just a small catch squat*

Time: 17:01
183 BPM heart rate avg

Cool down:

3 Rounds:
10 pullups
5 knee to elbows
10 dips
10 OHS @ 45 lbs (22 kg), I couldnt do behind the back pullups, need more shoulder flexibility I think

Time: 11:09
181 BPM heart rate average

Burpee Helene

2009-10-12T14:05:00.003+02:00

So my trainer Björn pulled me through these things today:

Training on progress -> muscle ups. I ripped my skin on my wrists during that.
Training on hand strength, both from hanging on the bar (pullups) and by climbing ropes. The latter hurt like hell. Today, I noticed that their bar is much thicker than the ones I'm used to - which causes me to do a lot worse on pullups than I should be.

Workout: "Burpee Helene"
20 burpee's
21 swings (24 kg kettlebell)
12 pull-ups.
3 rounds.
Time: 12:30.

I'm not at all satisfied with my time. My pull-ups were really bad today partly because I had been working out the hands so my grip was already crap from the beginning, and partly I blame it on the thick bar. I had to split them as 6/6, 4/4/4, 3/2/1/1/1/1/1/1/1. This dragged out the time like hell. Oh well, it was a fun training anyway. Hopefully my pullups will be a lot better at the xfit gym after this attempt to murder my hands.

Naughty Food/Drink of the day

2009-10-11T16:35:00.003+02:00

So I couldn't help myself. When my friend Paul told me about this recipe, I had to do it. Luckily, today is the day:

Jamacain Breakfast:

1 bottle Guinness Stout
2 raw eggs
1/2 can condensed milk

Blend

I have to say it's MMM mmmmm Good :). Although I think it makes more than what I want to drink, I'd say drink it with a friend for breakfast and split it and have something of substance with it too. It's just a bunch of calories lol. But quite tasty.

Alright, sorry to poison the blog with something bad :)

<3 Popedog

Clean and Jerk!

2009-10-11T16:28:00.003+02:00

So today I was inspired by the workout that one of my trainers did. He got it from OPT, although it's only one of the two they were supposed to do that day - I felt it to be a good challenge.

Workout:
25 x Clean (real clean, with squat) + Jerk @ 80 kg.

Since my old powerclean record is 92.5, I knew this was going to be hard.

Times (deltas) (5 x 5)
02:27 - 2:27
05:46 - 3:19
09:02 - 3:26
12:14 - 3:12
15:14 - 3:00

I think I had a pretty good tempo once I got through the first 5 ones. I could probably have held a tempo of avg 2:40 instead of avg 3:15. My goal was simply to live through the workout so I ran a pretty low tempo and tried to rest a little between each rep. It worked out fine, though I can probably push myself down towards 13 minutes or maybe even better.

I fel like that wasn't really enough, so I did:
10x pullup,
5x knees-to-elbows
10x dip
3x behind-head pullup

and 2 rounds of that (no time).

And had some extra time, so I did 1km row at 3:29. I was pretty worn out though so I couldn't keep a higher tempo.

Make me a Man, Man Maker

2009-10-10T02:21:00.003+02:00

So I totally got raped on this :(. I did the full weight, knowing that I'd probably end up slow as crap. As fun as it is to try and keep up with Simon, I'm just not there yet. I'll give results first, then analysis, etc:

45 LB (20.45KG) Manmakers x 30 reps

18:50
Avg Heart Rate: 188 BPM

**I am not happy with this time. I am not impressed with it. A few times during the exercise, I felt I could push harder, but I'm not sure how 195 sustained heart rate would work...

I tried very hard during the exercise to have controlled 1 arm rows without rotating my body too much. It was a bit hard, but not too bad to get the hang of.

Floor Wipers / Pullups
9/5
5/5
5/5

On the floor wipers, I notice that going to the right side, I am not as flexible or something in the lower back/hips. I'll have to figure out what that is and correct it...

Pretty tough workout. My energy level was there to do the work, but it seemed the hardcore blood/oxygen need is what slowed me down (cardio). Looks like that's the chink in my armor at this point.

The nice thing is, i can feel every day that I am getting stronger, and am convinced that these are some of the best workouts I've ever done :)

Man makers gave me the looks.

2009-10-09T19:41:00.004+02:00

So,

Today I started out with OHS. First time I've ever really done heavy OHS. The technique was failing quite hard. After 75 kg I had to drop the weight, and it felt like more technique training was what would get me to use heavier weights, not another try.

I had been planning on doing 30xman makers for time, so I attacked it with all that I could muster. After 12 minutes and 27 seconds on the 20 kg dumbbells I lay sweaty on the floor, chipping for air.

As if that wasn't enough, I continued with:
10x floorwipers (@50kg)
5x pull-ups.

5 rounds. No time-taking, I just wanted to get better on floor wipers and make sure my kipping technique holds out. It went fairly well I think.

That's it for today!
/S

Pushup Situp and Swing (AP style)

2009-10-09T01:39:00.002+02:00

Walked 5-6 KM at lunch today, nice fast pace about 4 MPH (6.45 kmph)

--------------------------------------

Today:

Jarovek Complex Barbell Warmup

AMRAP
5x Pushup + kickup per rep
10 x sit-ups
15x Swings, 55 lb Kettlebell (25 KG)

10 minutes

Result: 6 rounds in 9 minutes

I know I know, I stopped at 9 minutes. Why? I started seeing spots and couldn't breathe. I decided that it was a good point to stop and then continue to the next step of my workout. Next time I will improve.

--------------------------------------

75% Max Deadlift (275 LB (125 KG))
4 x 275
4 x 275
4 x 275
4 x 275

--------------------------------------

after the deadlifts I was pretty wore out. my lower back started to hurt a bit, but nothing serious, just good old working out. i did some hip stretches on the ground at home and then bellied up to a nice protein shake...

Pushup, situp and swing!

2009-10-08T14:14:00.003+02:00

Back to training today.

Technique-trained clean/snatch (not powerclean/powersnatch). It felt good, technique training is always good.

Today's workout:
AMRAP
5x Pushup + kickup (jump with your feet up to your hands and back to pushup position)
10x Sit-ups.
15x Swings, 24 kg Kettlebell.

10 minutes.
Result: 7 rounds.

I didn't actually do many breaks so it felt as if I had a pretty good layup of intensity. I'm not entirely satisfied with the results, a little bit of nausia pulled me back while the muscle-work was pretty exactly what I could muster.

I also did a little bit of "false-grip" training in the rings, I want to be able to do muscle-ups within a month.

It felt good to be back to training after yesterday's dirty rest-day. I even ate a bag of chips yesterday, which wasn't worth it at all.

I'm anxious to get to tomorrow so I can work-out then, too.

/Simon

Rest day

2009-10-07T12:55:00.002+02:00

I had planned to work out but I did not.

I had a feeling yesterday that I should chill out for a day. I haven't worked out much more than normally the last few days but it has been cake on cake as the swedish expression goes. Saturday I did a total of 240 squats, plus 160 push-ups and 80 pull-ups. On top of that I did heavy deadlifts which was rough the following days. Monday started out with pressing out almost 160 squats in 4 minutes. Add to this the 49 pull-ups and 49 burpee's, they pressed the parts of my body that was already under stress from saturday.

Yesterday was a harsh rowing-experience and late yesterday I felt that my muscles were pointing towards over-training. Instead of going up and doing another days workout, I simply took a pause. I've been eating great both yesterday and today (so far), so I feel that tomorrow I'll be back to working out with a better mood than ever. The sad part is that I really really felt like training today. I guess it's hard to do the right thing, and even harder when doing the wrong thing is doing the things you really love.

Enough of the emo-violin whining. I'm posting an article that I once wrote on facebook:

I came to a realization a while ago. This is hard for me to explain, but I would like to try and share it with everyone I know.

The key to my self-realization and self-knowledge is by overcoming my fears. I am not talking about fear of spiders or a certain type of animal. I am talking about facing the unknown, facing your fears. I do not want to continue giving the same answer and getting the same result. The only result from that is succeeding in avoiding my fears instead of addressing them.

Society today encourages avoiding fears instead of addressing them. We live our lives by a series of daily routines. Our lives are set into frameworks that are not meant to be changed. You live within the boundaries society encourages and, as a result, avoid your fears. In my view, society’s motto can be summed up as "The simplest way possible". If you see a person at the subway that is obviously feeling mentally ill, do you help them? Do you stand up and offer your assistance?

Facing your fears does not necessarily mean that you must break up your daily life and move to another side of the planet where you can find Nirvana. Facing your fears is an internal conflict. External factors such as where you live are simply not relevant to this discussion.

Everyone addresses their situation differently. For me, I am training, exercising, and eating in a way that I feel makes a difference. I try to defeat myself every time I go to the gym, every time I eat, and every time I go to a new place. Something as simple as learning how to dance makes all the difference. I might not win every fight with myself, but at least I try! But then, what can I lose when I challenge myself?

Everyone has their own unique way to face their own fears. Whether or not we realize it, facing your fears and addressing them will make us better in ways that we cannot understand until we have actually addressed our issues. Self-discovery, the inner conflict.

Alternate workout today (sorry :) )

2009-10-07T01:48:00.002+02:00

Warmup - Jarovek complex with barbell

Workout:

Deadlift:

8 x 135 (61.4kg)
3 x 225 (102.3kg)
1 x 315 (143.18kg)
1 x 345 (156.8kg)
1 x 355 (161.36kg)
1 x 365 (ROUGH) (165.9kg)
1 x 355
1 x 355 (fail)
1 x 355 (partial)

Weighted pullups:
55 lb (25kg) x 1 x 3 (pullup followed by pullup, etc but not concurrently)
55 lb x 1 x 3
55 lb x 1 x 3

Virtual Shoveling:
right side 20.45 kg (45 lb) on the end of 20.45 kg (45 lb) bar
Right side 6 on right 6 on left
left side 6 on right 6 on left

Simon vs the machine

2009-10-06T09:44:00.003+02:00

Morning training today!

Little did I know how much I hate to row in a rowing machine, until today.

Workout:
4 x 400m row for time.

HSPU-training between rowing.

Results:
1:07
1:10
1:12
1:10

Wow. That hurt. That hurt a lot. In the last round, my body was on fire. My legs, my feet, my hands, my arms, my shoulders, my back, my rear, my lungs, everything was hurting. It felt good afterwards. Mr Bear also talked a little bit to me about my technique for rowing and it seems like I'm actually pushing my hips forward too much. I think I can cut some more seconds if I do it more correctly. Thanks Bear!

Now I'm going to play the emo-violin the rest of the day.
/Simon

Intervals and Metcon

2009-10-05T14:05:00.003+02:00

Hey ho, I was planning on doing a workout yesterday. That is, until I woke up yesterday morning. My body was hurting so bad from saturday's workout that I could barely walk. My shoulders, my legs, my back, everything was aching.

After one day's rest there was time for another hour at Crossfit Uppsala.

Martin started the day with forcing us to:

Maxrep squats
20 seconds work (100%), 10 seconds rest.
8 rounds. Lowest round counts.

I hit 18 as my lowest round. I felt quite good thinking of that I still had some aching in my legs from the total of 240 squats I did saturday. I started out at 20 squats first round, went up to 21 second round, held out at 20 a few and then dropped to 19-19-18 the last 3 rounds.

As if that wasn't enough, he put us through a metcon as well:

7 rounds of
7 jumping pull-ups
7 burpee's.

I hate burpee's. They own me, hard. Even though they do, it went a lot better than I thought it would. I finished the metcon on 6 minutes 7 seconds. Not too bad, an average of 3.75 seconds / repetition. Pushing below 6 minutes will probably be possible next time I do something similar.

/Simon

Cindy baby, it's rough!

2009-10-03T18:59:00.003+02:00

So Cindy and I got together today:
AMRAP, 20 minutes:
5 pull-ups, 10 pushups, 15 squats.

Result:
15 rounds (I was in on the pushups when the bell rang).
I had some issues today with my breath, I'm not sure why. I felt ill
from roughly round 5 and forward. I think it might be because it felt as if
my belly was full of water (even though I hadn't eaten for over 3 hours) and
somehow I couldn't press myself as hard as I do sometimes / as hard as I want to.
Anyways, 15 rounds isn't too bad.

The better news:
My deadlift is back! I did 4x 2RM today, and although I didn't perform as
high as my expectations (do I ever, really?), I didn't feel any backpains
at all!

Results:
(warmup)
20 kg
70 kg
110 kg
140 kg
work:
160 kg (felt like my form broke on the second rep here, so I lowered)
150 kg
150 kg
150 kg.
So I'm all happy now!
Simon

Cindy - Let's try harder next time

2009-10-03T18:16:00.003+02:00

Cindy and I broke up today. I just felt that she, or I wasn't trying hard enough, and that maybe we'd be better off going our separate ways. Or maybe we should go on another date and try harder.

20 minutes AMRAP (as many reps as possible)
5 pullups
10 pushups
15 deep air squats

The Bad news: 12 rounds

I'm not too happy with my number of rounds here. Maybe it was just one of those days, like, what I ate last night, or just general feeling, I'm not really sure. I feel like I should be able to do 14-15 rounds on this, but thinking about that now, it sounds rough.

The Good News: Max Power Clean @ 75 KG (165 lbs)

This went up 20 lbs, and after watching Mr. Ripptoes vid again, I see where I can improve a bit more on form and probably gain another 10-15 on the next try from form alone.

Alright, peace out!

Check out my Turkish Bazaar

2009-10-01T05:59:00.003+02:00

Short and sweet, bed time.

15:00 minutes 35 lb turkish getups (19KG)
32 reps

my form started to break some on the last ones and i went slower to make sure i had very good form. for some reason the left getups are easier for me. i noticed that i need more hip and shoulder flexibility overall, just something I am noticing.

also did 10 wipers, but didn't have the right bar available, so stopped at 10

then did max bent over row. only 235 lbs :(

Night! <3

Rougher than you'd think...

2009-09-30T13:55:00.002+02:00

So today I slept out, totally. I woke up sore from all the HSPU's from yesterday, obviously I'm not used to do them.

Anyhow, on my lunch I ran away to the gym to do the following workout:

(warmup)
then:
Max rep Turkish Getups @ 20kg dumbbell in 15 minutes:
37 repetitions.

Rougher than I thought. I could have pushed myself harder, I could have made 40+, I swear. However, I must blame a little bit on the soreness from yesterday. I also made a couple of fails that I had to restart, mostly due to my sometimes inability to keep the weight stabile mostly due to my shoulders not being strong enough. That is usually not the case with this kind of weights so I blame it on the HSPU's from yesterday ;)

Anyhow, I felt that wasn't enough so I continued with:

3 x 10 of floor-wipers with 60 kg barbell.

The floor-wipers are done as in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggiYjRelWgc
(45 seconds in).

That was rough, really rough. The third set caused me to lose sight for a short while when I got up, I guess it was due to blood-pressure fall from very high when I was laying down to very low when I stood up.

That's it for today!
/Simon

Diane, I wish you'd stop talking dirty to me

2009-09-30T01:56:00.006+02:00

I met a trashy lady today, her name was Diane. She wanted to use me, fast and hard and she wanted to "See what I can do."

"Diane," replied Popedog in a half-excited tone, "what have you in store for me today?"

"I want to see what you can DO, soldier boy, now show me that sugar."

Well when it was all said an done, that tramp used me for 4:10, quick and hard just like she promised (heart rate was SCREAMING at the max for most of this and nearly puked):

21 DL @ 70 KG (155 lbs)
21 modified HSPU
15 DL @ 70 KG
15 modified HSPU
9 DL @ 70 KG
9 modified HSPU

I also did a workup heavy deadlift to 5 rep max:
135x5 (61.3KG), 225x5 (102.2KG), 265x5 (120.5KG), 285x5 (129.5KG) (Owches!!)

I feel like the weight was right on for the deadlifts, as the last set of 9 I was starting to struggle on the last few reps. I can't do the full on HSPU yet, but modified offer a small challenge. I haven't figured out how to make the transition, but with a body-weight of 101 KG, I'm not ready to make that leap.

Going to review the deadlift form, I suspect I have been going with too wide of a leg stance, and butt not low enough. Other than that, I feel like it's rocking for sure :)

(Edit: I reviewed the form and found that I'm doing deadlifts a bit wrong, too wide of a grip, which changes start position and some other things. my form wasn't as bad as I thought though. also, my push press form sucks. I'm going to fix that moving forward.)

"Diane"

2009-09-29T09:25:00.002+02:00

WO:

Work up heavy deadlift (5 reps / weight as you go). End up with a 5RM set.

"Diane":
21 - 15 - 9 reps of:
Deadlift 105 kg
HSPU's

I had to scale it a "little" bit :P This was my results:
21 DL @ 80 kg
6 HSPU
15 DL @ 80 kg
4 HSPU
9 DL @ 80 kg
5 HSPU

5 min 30-somethings seconds. I think it was 5:37

Deadlifts:
I ended up at 140 kg, could probably have gone up another 30 kilo's. My back starts to hurt a little bit these days as I go past 100 kg's. Since the pain was less than previous weeks, I'm going to try to keep away from my previously very heavy (180 kg on working-set) DL's and just do as few as possible - until I feel as if my back no longer hurts.

On Diane, I wish that I would have gone for 90 kg or even 100 kg. I only let go of the weight to change grips. The last 4 were painful but I wouldn't have minded having the last 9 split into 3. Perhaps 105 kg wouldn't have been bad if we wouldn't have started with heavy DL's.

The HSPU's went pretty fine for the first 6. I split them into 3's. The second ones were heavy and since I thought it was 6 - 4 - 2, I quit after 4. Unfortunate for me! I was told that it was 6-5-4 when I had done 2 in the last set. It was heavy but it went ok. I can't wait until I get my HSPU-reps up to 10's. Going to start adding extra HSPU's a couple of times / week just to get them up.

Probably slept too little last night. Going to go dancing this evening and then try to sleep out tomorrow :)

Simon out!

Fran Fail Popedog Style

2009-09-29T02:14:00.002+02:00

Same workout as Simon (thrusters at 85 lb (38.6kg) and pullups (these were 1/2 kip, not enough room allowed for full kip, but did involve some torso movement)) - terrible result.

11:20
187 average heart rate

I have a sneaking suspicion that my poor performance is based on the fact that for the last 1.5 weeks I have eaten poorly, not slept enough and didn't stick to my routine last week. No excuses though, this was a really poor performance.

Tomorrow I'll start writing down everything I eat again and try and stick around 2100-2400 kcal with a good protein/fat/carb balance.

Fran Fail.

2009-09-28T14:23:00.002+02:00

Today's workout:

21 x 40kg thruster
21 x Kipping pull-up
15 x 40kg thruster
15 x Kipping pull-up
9 x 40kg thruster
9 x Kipping pull-up.

I was happy after the first round. The 21 first thrusters felt fine, I had a good tempo. The pullups went really good, first time in about a year that I've been able to do good kipping pull-ups.

Then it hit me, I split the 15 thrusters into 2 - that was fine. The next 15 pull-ups were a disaster. I think I took over 2 minutes on these 15 pullups alone.

My ending time was 7:30. Not quite what I expected or what I hoped for. Next time will be better. Next time I'll try to split up round one and not run into the wall during the second round.

Simon

Rest days

2009-09-27T13:09:00.002+02:00

So I was taking friday and saturday off for resting and was going to go to the gym today Sunday.

However, since I'm such a bright person - I totally missed out on actually bringing my clothes home from work. Since I work in another town, it would take me 3 hours of traveling (total) just to go training. Either that or buying new shoes and new shorts to train in. Unfortunately this wasn't an option since I have some unplanned expenses this month. Instead, I did some home-training!

3X maxrep pushups:
32-35(pr)-33
(rest as needed between sets).

I'm not sure if I'm satisfied with my pushups, it feels as if I need more endurance in explosiveness. As I pass roughly 20 pushups, I have to start muscling them up and using less "spring" from the bottom-position. Maybe it becomes better later on, I really want to be able to do 50+ pushups in a row.

I also trained a few HSPU's and some squatting technique (slow airsquats).

I'm glad that I atleast did something today:)

Simon

I also did some technique training. I tried doing SOTS with a cleaning-pole, which felt like it was good practice. I think I'm getting a little bit more flexible in my shoulders, hips and wrists.

Rough metcon!

2009-09-24T14:24:00.003+02:00

I went to the uppsala crossfit guys today again, this time it was Björn's time to punish us. And punish us he did. The metcon was actually one of the roughest I've ever done, specifically because of yesterday's rough workout.

3 rounds for time of:

20 swings (@24 kg kb)

20 frontsquats (@24 kg kb)

20 burpee's

I finished at something like 12:56. I felt a little bit wasted from yesterday and it felt like my pulse went up a little bit too fast. The swings were rough, the squats were pretty easy but the burpee's were fucking horrible. My lunges burned, my head was spinning and my muscles were screaming.

It. was. awesome.

Simon out.

"Fight Gone Bad"

2009-09-23T12:14:00.003+02:00

I had never done this workout before. This morning at the gym (www.crossfituppsala.se) our teacher Martin explained it to us and I started to get that tingling sensation that I only get when I know that I'm about to do something that is going to take both physical and mental endurance.

After going through the excersizes and getting warmed up, we started the pain.

3 rounds of:

1 minute wall-ball (8 kg)

1 minute of sumo-deadlift + high-pull (32 kg kettlebell)

1 minute of box-jumps (not sure how high, knee-height approx)

1 minute of push-press (35 kg bb)

1 minute of rowing.

1 minute rest

I'm can't remember my results. I know that the last box-jumps were 20, I think I had 15 push-press the last round and something like 16 kcal of rowing. The "goal" is 20 in each minute and in each round. I think my first round of wall-balls were above 20, but honestly I can't remember.

There are very few times in my life that I have been pushed this hard both physically and mentally. During the third round, after I put myself through the 20 box-jumps, my puls felt like it was beating at 195 - 200 bpm. I have a pretty decent sense of my high-pulses and I know that I was up at my max-pulse for the entire push-press in the third round.

It felt great.

It is times like this that you know that you are alive. Next time, I'll do even better. I'll push myself harder regardless of wether I have become more athletic or not.