Diane Preparations

You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

- Buddha.

3.30 pm – WoD @ CCF

WU: Row 1’42.8 min/22 spm. Parallette passtroughs, DU’s and some Dynamic work

A. 5 * 5 Sumo Deadlifts:
102kg/5, 111/5, 125/5, 134/5, 143/5

B. Five rounds for time:

• 7 HSPU’s – amrap in rings, then on the mat.
• 7 Deadlifts @ 111kg
• 33 DU’s
• 
  

Times: 1’50 min (5 Ring HSPU/5 reg), 2’25 min (3/2/1/1), 2’50 min (2/2/1/1/1), 2’50 min (2/2/1/1/1), 2’38 min (2/2/1/1/1)

C. Tabata KB-press Bottom Up @ 12 kg, let weak side deside:
6/6, 7/7, 8/8, 9/9

Cool Down: +1h of Mobility Work and Foamrolling

I forgot one thing in my programme explanation yesterday, I have to do two 500m rows as warm up each week with an decreasing time cap. First week it’s sub 1’45 and then I am suppose to drop 3s per week until I get sub 1’30. Also I have to get two other rowing sessions in each week, may it be in a metcon or pure rowing intervals, just get it done!

I haven’t done ”Diane” in more than a year and since CCF mark their end to a challenge with her on Monday, I felt that a little extra training wouldn’t hurt. Not that I wouldn’t need these excercises anyway, hehe.
Choose to go with sumos since I’m going for new excercise and wanna save my lower back now that I start to slowly build up the volume again and I must say that they felt really good. Never heavy, but of course the butt started to go off early when the weights increased.

For the metcon I was again inspired by OPT and one of his followers that did what I did, finish of each set on the ground, in a wod posted not too long ago. (This is also why I got confused and did 10 reps first set, even though I had programmed 7 across).Ring HSPU’s are super fun, and hard, and I do let my self come off pretty easy some times. The first one is always the hardest, in the way it’s being done from the bottom, and I’m not sure I do have full ROM for all the reps. However, it felt good to get all the Deads unbroken, (broke only one set of DU’s), and to actually get my last round faster than the ones before is very unusual for me. Maybe I am on my way of becoming a decent athlete after all.

Bottom Up presses was the first time for me, wanted to go with 16kg but it was really wobbly when I tried. The fact that I got more reps for each round is just a proof that I do adapt when working in new moving patterns, so I am satisfied.

Really nice braai tonight and maybe just a little to much Pinotage, but tomorrow is planned to be an active resting day and after doing doubles for a couple of days, I think that’s just what I need. Since internet down here is basicly like sending smoke signals, I will post my video of today’s work tomorrow instead, but hey, life is not about stressing things…

Namaste!

No place I rather be

The Gods favour you, Maximus…

So what could be better suited for a morning session than the most divine place in the world?

10.30 am – Beach WoD

A. 3 * 3 Free Strict Inverted Burpee into Forward Roll
(Sit up – Frog Stand – Head Stand – Hand Stand – Forward Roll into next rep).

B. 4 Rounds for Time:

• 20m ”2-for-1 Cheetah Sprints”*
• 20 Jumping Jacks
• 20 Split Jumps (10 Borzovs).

Time: 5’29 min

C. Yogaman’s routine + Meditiation, approx 20 min.

Really need to get a camera so I can share the joy of my gymnastic project. Fell over from the hand stand more than I actually lowered down, but for the last round I actually managed to get the first two reps pretty strict. Goal is to hold each position for 5 sec with three consecutive reps in each three rounds!

”Cheetah Sprints”? Well, don’t know what to call it. Martin posted a really cool video some time ago with a guy doing awsome beach excercises. One that really caught my eye was his animal like sprint where basically only the hands OR the feet touch the sand at one time. So, without ever trying them before I set out for the first round, hmm maybe wouldn’t call my version sprints. I am clearly not coordinated enough cause everytime I got on to the feet my movement kind of lost the forward motion, so I just did like ”hands to feet to broad jump to hands”, which proved to be quite taxing anyway.
Don’t even remember when I did jumping jacks the last time, new excercises every week you know. Quads and glutes got tight pretty fast and in the end Poseidon clearly thought I needed to cool down and send the tidal up to leave my entire last round in the ankle high freezing Atlantic Ocean, awsome!

After a short breather I went up to my favourite cliff and finished it all off with some yoga stretching and following the pattern, the gods also sent me a cape fur seal to keep me company playing in the waves below.

Deadlifts and Ring HSPU’s later and I know I’m repeating my self, but with this start off the day, how could it go anything but really well?

Namaste!

Don’t make me laugh…

…at least not tomorrow..

3.30pm – WoD @ CCF

A. 5 min of 3-pos Snatch ozm @ 43kg:
(Floor to Squat, knee to power, hip to squat).

B. 3 × 3 Snatch Balance @ 61kg
3, 3, 2+1

C. Bar gymnastics, 3 min rest:
(Try to stay on the bar between excercises).

• 5 Pronated Strict Behind the neck PU’s
• 5 Supinated Strict CTB PU’s
• 10 Strict Leg Raises

Unbroken, unbroken, 5+5/10

D. 5 * 3 L-hang Skin the Cat + 1 ”lowering front lever”

E. Tabata GHD’s:
10, 10, 11, 10, 10, 8, 7, 6
Total: 72 reps

Technique work for snatches worked fine, missed the last s-balance forward, no biggie. So my goal is as said earlier to get the bar serie done for five rounds, unbroken, with 2 min in between rounds. Gonna build it up slowly and stop when I have to break a set. Feeling stronger already in the pull though, more solid keeping the midsection tight and legs straight. Only the grip/forearms that need more work I would say.
Ringwork also getting better and my legs were straighter then before through out most sets, even though it might not look like it on the pics from the last round…
Tabata was just the finisher that probably is going to get me to know excactly where my abs are at all time for days to come. Actually pretty surprised to get theses numbers, don’t think I can get much faster than getting 10 reps across, which will be a goal if I do this again.

So to my programming. Just a short insight into the details of what I plan to incorporate

AM Workouts:

• Beach Workouts 2/w.
• Beach Runs 1/w.
• Lions Head 1/w.
• Longer Hike/Trail Run 1/w.

PM Workouts:

• Olympic Technique Work 2/w.
• ”Pure Gymnastic session” 1/w. (Like today).
• Longer Metcon 1/w. (20 min or more, Benchmarks mostely).
• Heavy Interval Metcon 2/w.
• Strenght Sessions with ”unorthodox” lifts 2-3/w.
  
• Max Efforts Olympic Lifts 1/month.

So, the goal is to improve my work capacity first of all and also to get my general strengths up with more gymnastics work. The beachwods will also incorporate gymnastic excercises, a lot of handstands i.e. I plan to not let my self do the ”traditional” lifts heavy, since I do have a history of getting overtrained and collecting minor injuries that way. To be able to avoid getting the weights up the plan is to do for example Deadlifts on an uneven foundation, thicker mat most likely, or  maybe Push Presses with KB’s to keep the weights down and at the same time force me to use more of assisting muscles and getting more agility work in with those as well.

As for the OL’s I don’t wanna get stuck in the hype of overdoing them. Even though I as well think they are fun to do, for me personally I need to keep on vary my program to a bigger degree right now to actually have top motivation for every session. By doing technique work with lower weights, (I promised my self to keep the weights at 80% of 1RM at the most), I hope to improve my technique well enough to actually get these lifts up anyway. I am quite sure that to take a step back and not keep on pushing it, which probably only provides a bad moving pattern for me, will be completely the right thing to do. The max lifts every 4th week is to keep track of the progress and to make sure that I don’t lose my 1RM’s.
Hopefully it will all work out as I hope and I will actually get stronger with lower weights, letting the muscles super compensate more with less stress on the nervous system and at the end of a 12 week period, I wan’t my general lifts to be up without me actually been doing them on a regular basis.

Possible? We just have to wait and see…

Namaste!

Closer to Heaven

To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.

- Buddha.

Easy to feel like a Titan walking amongst the mountain tops...

Finally time to get to my favourite spot in the entire world, top of Lions Head. Me, Mattias and the dog set out at around 9 am and the setting couldn’t be much better. 20 degrees, that felt a lot warmer in the sun, a cool breeze and barely any clouds at all. Expected it to be a nightmare for my legs, that still are a bit sore from last week, but strangely enough, considering I haven’t done this in 3-4 months, it felt quite easy! Didn’t push it, nore time it, but still we kept going all the time and I felt strong all the way to the top.
Stayed up there for 15 minutes or so, doing some yoga and meditation, how could I ever get a better start to any week or day?

Today I start my own programming, can’t wait to get into the gym. Won’t get into details right now, but my hope and belief is that I will get stronger without pushing the traditional lifts even close to any max. ”Unorthodox” excercises or lifting techniques with a big focus on gymnastics and conditioning is suppose to get me into the best physical shape of my life. Let you know the details later on and of course it will be very interesting to see if I’m totally out of line or if I will succeed in my attempt to forge elite fitness…

Namaste!

Beach WoD aka Who needs peeling…

The virtues, like the Muses, are always seen in groups. A good principle was never found solitary in any breast.

- Buddha.

Representing!

9 AM – Cape CrossFit WoD @ Camps Bay Beach!

”Sandy Helen” – 3 Rounds of:

• approx. 550m Beach Run
• 21 KBS @ 24kg
• 12 Burpees

Time: 13´39 min

Great group of people that got together to do the first beach wod of the season! Think there was 15-ish of us that started out with 5 rounds of somewhere around 50m sprints. On to the main wod I had no plans but to not kill my self on the first run. Experience is a good thing and when the rest of the guys in the first heat set off straight ahead I immediatly crossed over to the waterline and enjoyed the harder packed sand there. Kept it together pretty well at the first round, but when I saw Cathryn sprinting away for the second run I just told my self to let her go and keep my own pace. Good thing that, burpees in the sand really takes it toll, tastes like.. well sand, and even though I did all rounds unbroken and was probably second after the sprinting woman in total time, I can´t say I am too pleased with my time.

I don´t know what my time was a year ago, (Dave you got my time? ), but had some memories of it being just below 13, which either can´t be the case, or we did run way longer this time. We did start a littler further away from the rocks this time, but I am pretty sure that I kept a much better stride in my runs this time so anyway, it felt good and that is all that matters!

After the wod I chickened out on the 16 degree ocean dip, (Hey, I trust in the sun and if it´s not out there to warm me, I am not gonna get cold), but did try one of my gymnastic projects. I wanna go from lying flat into a situp, roll in to a frog stand, into head stand and on to a free hand stand and then roll down again into the next rep. Actually got the first rep quite ok, held the handstand for maybe 1-2 sec and then into the roll. The next one however, I was too eager and went up to early and obviusly fell over. Goal is to get three strict reps!

A little cloudy today and ”only” 20-ish degrees, but after a great breakfast down by the beach with the guys and going to a braai at another beach pretty soon, I can´t really pretend that I wanna be any other where right now…

Namaste!

Back where I belong!

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.

- Buddha.

Not my pic, to busy birdwatching to take any..

5.30pm – WoD @ Cape CrossFit

A. Power Clean 1-1-1:
61kg/3, 84/1+1, 93/1, 102/1

B. 21-15-9 of:

• Burpees
• Thrusters @ 43kg

Time: 6’41 min

Sooo, after a couple of delays, glasses of red wine in airport bars and a surprisingly quick clearing in customs, I was finally down at my favourite beach again! 27 degrees and a burning sun was all I needed to get my mood back in top gear, obviusly the amount of nice looking bikini girls didn’t excactly put me down either…

Then, to be back in the gym and meeting all the guys again was definitely the high point of the day however. Even though it wasn’t that long ago it felt like I’ve been gone way too long, and even though I was a bit sluggish from the +30 hours of traveling, I couldn’t motivate my self not to do the wod with the guys.
With the power cleans, I was a bit surprised to get 102 up so easily, (I didn’t say pretty), especially since my hammies are pretty smoked since the last wod at CrossFit Nordic. Technique felt ok even though I’m still not fast enough into the ”rack”. Could probably have gone higher but it felt good to stop there. For the metcon I didn’t wanna smoke my self to early so I set an approximately 90% pace from the beginning and pretty much kept it through out. First round of burpees unbroken and from there 2-3 breaks per set and exercise. Even though it’s not in any way a super time, I actually think my metcon shape is surprisingly good. Well, we will see tomorrow, when running and swinging for time will be the beach workout, if that’s really the case...

After class me, Roland, Jobst and Ralf went to the ”Hussar Grill” in Camps and considering how much I have been missing South African meat, I couldn’t have asked for a better welcome-back-dinner, thx guys!

PS. I really have no idea why the text size varies here sometime, just don’t have the patience to do anything about it…

Namaste!

Am I the only one smiling in the snow?

And might it be because I know it will soon be over…

11.30 WOD @ CFN

A. Good Mornings: 8-8-8-8 @ 80%

B. 6 Rounds For Time:

• 12 Russian KBS @ 32kg
• 8 Back to Front and back rolls
  (From Hollow Rock pos without letting legs or arms touching the floor).
• 8 Borzov = Jumping Lunges

Time: 6’31 min

C. 3 Rounds, not for time:

• 15 GHD Sit Ups
• 15 Reverse Hypers

So, when everybody else tried to stay inside for as long as possible I was welcoming the falling snow in my face while waiting for the commuter train this morning.
As said earlier I really wanted to join a group class training and today I did, as expected it was super fun. Mads helped with some cues wich improved my muscle contact immediatly, kept the weight low but still I felt it good. For the metcon I saw that my fellow SM-athlete, Ali, had got it done in 6’47 during morning class, so of course mygoal was of to beat that.Got the first done in 53s and had some dreams of getting in sub 6, wich obviusly didn’t work, but still I’m satisfied. Kept on working all the way without any breaks and kept a pretty good pace.

EDIT: OMG, just found out Ali apparently used 40kg, god damn it that’s impressive mate!

C was obviusly only to get some ”look good on the beach”-training in there…

Tacos with family is probably the best way to end this Swedish winter for me, tomorrow is an active rest day and hopefully I’ll give you something fun to watch from my workouts towards the weekend!

Namaste!

Gymnastics to the people!

It is better to travel well than to arrive.

- Buddha.

Yet, I cannot help longing for my favourite destination...

10am – WOD @ CFN:

A. 5 Rounds, goal is to not let go of the bar between excercises:

• 5 Strict Pronated Pull Ups, Behind the neck
• 5 Strict Supinated PU’s, CTB
• 10 Strict and straight Leg Raises

Unbroken, 5+5/10, 5/5/10, DNF, DNF

B. 5 * 3 L-hang Skin The Cat, last rep lowers from inverted hang to ”slow” front lever, 2 min rest b/t sets.

C. Metcon from CrossFit Nordic, alternate for six rounds of 1 minute max on each:
Score is lowest on each, times eachother.

• Inverted Burpees – 8/7/6/6/6/9 (total: 42 reps).
• Burpee Box Jumps @ 60cm – 12/8/8/8/8/9 (53).

Score: 6*8 = 48

Wanted to do a double today by joining the afternoon class, but it was just not possible with a lot of errands that had to be done. But since Inverted Burpees was something I actually was thinking about doing, why not just rip off their metcon?
First thing first, I wanted to name this post ”Who stole my grip?” at first. Already during the first round of the pu-complex my forearms was cramping and I hope it has something to do with my vain attempts to keep up with Marcus yesterday. My now specified goal is to do these 5 rounds unbroken and with only 2 min of rest in between, needles to say, I will have a lot of time discovering if the journey really is better…
Instead, all of a sudden my grip worked fine for the ring work, so I decided to to 5 rounds here instead of 3 as planned.

For the metcon then, I’ve done inverted once before (like 18 months ago), but this time I threated them as a new excercise and instead of going for speed, I really tried to keep them strict. Went from the floor to squat, to frogstand and then just pressed up into a handstand. Perfect combo of excercises for this time domain. BJ’s obviusly spiked my heartrate and was heavy for the legs, while inverteds kept the shoulders working hard, but also let me recover a little.

This works perfect with my new programming plan that states that I have to put two new excercises in every week, (think I can count both these as new). Well, a new version of any excercise will also be approved, I think this will bring my GPP up a lot!

Tomorrow I really am going to the lunch class and I happen to know that there is another great excercise planned in there that I’m looking forward to try.

Namaste!

 

Getting my scaled a## handed to me!

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.

- Buddha.

12.30pm wod @ CrossFit Nordic

C. ”Gaucoin” from OPT, 6 rounds for total rest, start every 3rd minute @ 70kg:
rx’d is starting every 2:30 min.

• 2 Power Cleans
• 2 Push Jerks
• 2 Squat Cleans
• 350 m Row
  (My rows: 350m, 300, 250, 200, 150, 100).
• 
  

Time per round: 1’45 min, 1’46, 1’44, 1’40, 1’25, 1’12

So, according to Buddha, I think I made the mistake of not going all the way today. But, as said before these to weeks after SM are meant to be done by heart and just having fun. Fun today meant meeting up with Marcus, one of the top athletes from the competition, and to act dragging help to him. He is doing the programming for a group that doesn’t have rowers so 400m runs was there sub, and naturally we added time per interval. Plan was to do the rows for full distance (350m), but after smoking my self on the first round at around 1’35/500m, I decided to take a step down and just get through it. Nothing wrong with scaling at this stage but I do think that I should have kept all the rows to maybe 200-250m instead. Funny how easy the first rounds OLY was compared to the rest, wonder why…

Marcus is a beast and actually got faster from the second round to the last, which was his fastest at 1’40 I think. With full rows obviusly, impressive as always!
He made a point to me earlier that I could use this wod as a ”benchmark” to see my progress and I like the idea. So, in the end of next week I’m gonna try this rx’d and from then on I think I’ll do it every 4th week. Even though one probably will get better by just repeating the same excercises, I think that this is a good test to see how my work capacity is developing. And since that is my biggest goal from now on, ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a winner…

Thinking about doing a double tomorrow, depending on what the class programming brings. I still haven’t done a group session at this gym, and that is something everybody should, so bring it on!

Namaste!

Posing in the Snow

That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run. So I ran to the end of the road, and when I got there, I thought maybe I’d run to the end of town…

- Forrest Gump.

 

OK, I admit, winter has some decent days…

Noon – WOD, 23 min of POSE @ Z2

Since my calves been pretty much destroyed after Tuesday’s 6,6km* run, probably the longest consecutive run I’ve done since high school, I thought it was time to smoke them again now that they started working again. (Obviusly couldn’t help my self MapMyRun-ning my track when it was such a destroyer).
Today however there was about zero degrees and some freshly fallen snow all over, making it way more interesting. Slippery slopes, hidden mud traps and frozen feet was all a part of today’s fun. Of course I’m still running in my fivefingers and about halfway through I couldn’t feel some of my toes. But, since I within soon will exchange the winter beneath me to much more pleasant hot sand, I really don’t mind.
Hopefully the Michelin Man-looking girls on the horses I met in the forrest will also be substituted with bikini girls looking for a nice guy who can help them getting the sunscreen rubbed in…

Namaste!