Only a few days after our last workout, the CrassFit crew reassembled for another workout this Tuesday. This time, we were greater in numbers – Rainer, Peter, Jozy and me attended. Special kudos to Peter who attended in spite of the fact that he just arrived from his stay at Munich – this is real determination!

A bit clueless about the workout structure, we used something that seemed somehow logical: We splitted the effort into three blocks:

• Pulling Power
• Leg Work
• Pushing Power

After a bit of warm-up (I have done countless repetitions with the kettlebells prior to the arrival of every attendee), we started with the first part:

Pre-Fatigue

For the pulling power part, we used the good old rope. None of us has used the rope recently so it was quite a challenge to climb up. For those who were unable to climb up (including me, with time), we did body rows on the rope. In total, we did six rounds of climbing up the rope – until we could not go on.

We finished the pulling part with towel pull-ups. Here I experienced something rare: I was physically unable to get a grip on the towel – my grip strength was so fatigued that I barely could hold myself onto it. We really did everything we could to give our very last piece of power (with the exception of Peter who somehow seems to have too much strength ).

Metabolic Conditioning

Leg work is predestined to act as metabolic conditioning part of the workout. There are no exercises which challenge the cardiovascular system more than leg-centric ones: Squats, burpees, lunges, deadlifts and the like.

We did three rounds of:

• 10 + 10 Swings 16 kg (unilateral or bilateral, even double kettlebell if possible)
• 10 + 10 High Pulls (same here)
• 10 Squats (double kettlebell, with the exception of Jozy)
• approx. 200 Meter running (double that distance for the last round)

The waiting queue was a bit of a hindrance for this workout – if we were to do this in a consecutive manner, it would have gone beyond our capabilities to perform further – running for distance after leg work is tremendously fatiguing, if bearable at all.

Post-Fatigue

As we were starting to feel cold, we kept the third part sweet and short. We again did three rounds of:

• 5 + 5 Military Press 16 kg
• 5 Dips on the Jungle Gym (substituted with static holds or high-rep push-ups)

Done! None of us were feeling like this was too light for a workout. It was exhausting and would have even been a killer if the metabolic conditioning hadn’t had the waiting times. Next time, we’re going to optimize queues (I should be capable of doing so, as a software engineer ).

Train on and stay strong!
Simon

This Friday, the CrassFit crew assembled again – but in severely diminished numbers. It boiled down to only me and Jozy doing the workout at last. The workout session was dominated by instruction work – I found myself in the rather new situation of being the trainer and motivator – normally Dominik’s role (too bad he was missing out as well). I learned a lot from the experience, nonetheless

As for the workout itself, the workload was a little less intense than the last few workouts. We were both not in prime physical condition so doing some ‘easy’ work came in handy.

After a warm-up – where I stole a lot of elements from the warm-up we normally do at my Aikido courses – we did the following:

Pre-Fatigue

3 rounds of

• 5 + 5 Front Squat
• 5 Sumo Deadlift High-Pull
• 5 + 5 Sots Press

I all too soon found out that the exercises were uneven in workload. While the squats (Jozy used 8 kg, I used 24 kg) were relatively hard to do, the High-Pull was too easy (me using 24 kg, Jozy 16) – five Repetitions were quite a joke, twenty would have been better. In hindsight, doing the exercise unilateral would have been an appropiate solution to the problem. The Sots Press was too hard to manage in most cases (Jozy used 8 kg, I used 16 kg), so I supplemented them with regular Military Presses.

Metabolic Conditioning

Clean – Military Press – Squat performed in a ladder-style workout:

Round 1: 1 complex left – 1 complex right – rest
Round 2: Round 1 + 2 complexes left + 2 complexes right – rest
Round 3: Round 2 + 3 complexes left + 3 complexes right – rest
[...]

We did five rounds. The focus here lies with the grip – it is simply not allowed to let go of the Kettlebell while performing one round. Due to the rather light weight we both used (Jozy 8 kg, me 16 kg) we did not really break a sweat nor were we challenged with grip issues. This should normally be a lot harder than it actually was.

Post-Fatigue

For post-fatigue I stole the workout pattern from our great workout two weeks ago: Farmer’s walks. As I had not enough weight available, I tried to make things harder by choosing either rack walks or (partially) overhead walks as a substitute.

The finisher thereafter were three sets of towel pull-ups. I had a hard time squeezing out a lot of repetitions and so did Jozy – it simply is the most difficult variation of pull-ups, especially if you struggle doing the regular ones already.

[---]

Conclusion: This workout simply wasn’t hard enough to be called a really ‘tough’ challenge. I have to think of other means to challenge ourselves for the next one

Train on and stay strong,
Simon

After being a group of five last week, this week’s workout saw only Peter and me coming – all the others had plenty of reasons to excuse themselves.

This workout came about without real planning, so we were going to work on the basics instead of handling fancy exercises. Peter has finally gotten his own 24 kg Kettlebell, so we based our workout mainly about this tool which still is a tremendous challenge for both of us.

After toying around a while with the Kettlebells (double Kettlebell work is tremendously challenging – I thought it to be easier, going even as far as thinking about doing metabolic conditioning work with it), we decided on a workout. The final result was:

Metabolic Conditioning

3 rounds of

24 kg Kettlebell Complex

• Push press
• One-armed swing
• One-armed high-pull
• Clean
• Squat

5 repetitions each, left + right

Each round was complemented with a approx. 200-meter-run.

This workout turned out to be a lot harder than I initially thought and I turned out to do a downwards ladder of 5-4-3 repetitions for the respective rounds, which was challenge enough. Peter was braver than me and completed the full five repetitions for each round. What proved hard to accomplish for me was maintaining the grip. I have to admit that my second and third round were shadowed with an extremely high frequency of resting the Kettlebell on the round – which defies the purpose of training with complexes, which is maintaining the grip throughout exercise execution.

Post-Fatigue

Peter came up with the idea of the ‘Man-Maker’. This is a complex consisting of:

• Push-up on the Kettlebells
• Renegade row on both sides
• Double clean
• Squat

Three rounds of five repetitions each were planned. I again reduced the number of repetitions due to pain and fatigue, Peter did the whole amount. This exercise is especially challenging for the abdominal section of the body. Doing the renegade rows, it’s the wrong question to ask which muscles of the body currently are working – the right question would be: Which ones of them aren’t working? This exercise feels just like the whole body being under tension. In this respect, I’d like to compare renegade rows with turkish get-ups.

The workout was completed with a few sets of push-ups plus renegade rows as finisher, before we packed our things and started the way home.

Lessons I learned from the workout today are the following

• A towel is an elementary piece of equipment – you can never know how much you will sweat
• A second pack of clothes also is a good idea if you have a long way home – especially for the upper body, which is usually soaked in sweat and cold
• Take something to eat with you for post-workout nutrition. I favor bananas for the job – as for protein, this is a good field of usage for protein powders – as they are easily transportable in a shaker. Add water and drink it.
• It is essential to train your grip strength. The grip is the first thing that lets loose and limits your abilities.

Train on and stay strong,
Simon

Whenever either time is scarce or your hunger for a extremely intense workout is impossible to satisfy, training with complexes is the right thing to do. We did lots of complexes with kettlebells during the last few workouts – but this workout surpassed the experiences we gathered up to now.

For this workout session, our CrassFit crew has gathered in complete – with the exception of Harald, who is working out with Till Sukopp this weekend. I, Dominik, Rainer, Peter and his sister Jozy – we did our best.

First off the facts:

Warm-up

Carrying the equipment to the place of the workout Farmer’s walk for half a kilometer with lots of weight is fine for a workout

Pre-Fatigue

4 rounds of

• 8 repetitions handstand push-up (assisted)
• 8 repetitions towel pull-up

If the prescribed repetitions could not be achieved, the maximum in repetitions was the goal. For those who had a hard time doing (assisted) handstand push-ups, they were substituted with push-ups with elevated legs.

Metabolic Conditioning

3 rounds of the following barbell complex

• Bent over row
• Clean
• Military Press
• Front Squat
• Back Squat
• Good Morning

8 repetitions per exercise

The experience of such a workout is bar description. At each and every point you either approach muscular or grip failure – although normally the grip is the element that fatigues earlier. It was a real relief that we could ‘rest’ the barbell from the back squats on – otherwise, the load would have been too much of a challenge.

We adapted the load to the strength and endurance level we could sustain. Rainer and me, we used 20 kg of weight, Peter 40 kg and Dominik stunning 50 kg, which were operated in a machine-like accuracy and speed. Impressive! Jozy started with 20 kg and did a reduced workout – which is perfectly alright. It’s important that you sustain a distinct workload that fits to your abilities in order to progress.

Post-Fatigue

Kettlebell complex work

• 10 one-handed swings (each side)
• 10 snatches (each side)
• 10 cleans (each side)
• 10 overhead presses (each side)
• 10 forward lunges
• 10 both-handed swings
• 5 snatches (each side)

Focus was on work for time with a specific load – a skill that we already trained with the barbell complexes. Jozy used a small dumbbell, Peter, me and Rainer used the 16 kg kettlebell and Dominik challenged himself with my green monster (24 kg).

Here, the grip also is the limiting factor – next to the fatigue that limits what is possible over time.

Finisher

As we were not destroyed yet ( ), Dominik decided on a finisher exercise: Farmer’s walk! We did circles around a sandbox – for those challenging themselves with 2 x 24 kg (kettlebells), 2 rounds were assigned (Jozy did 2 rounds with 2 x 16 kg), those who went for 2 x 40 kg (16 + 24 kg kettlebell per hand), one round was sufficient. I personally did one round for two times (sets) with 80 kg of load – a new personal best

Now we were really done – and had our problems carrying the weights back to our cars. No wonder I felt extremely tired this evening and went to bed relatively early.

Conclusio

What a great workout! All of us enjoyed it and we learned a lot from it – and hopefully progress in power and endurance by doing workouts like this one



Dancers in the dark



Dancers in the dark




























Breathe in – work out.



Our dancer in the dark :)










Instructions















Click on pen to

Sometimes, we all have to take time off. Sometimes there is just no way around it.

This applies as well to our CrassFit initiative. Due to the circumstances, we took two weeks off before starting again. Dominik proposed the following workout already two weeks ago, so I was longing to finally do it – together with Peter, who accompanied me.

For this workout, we changed locations. The Freinberg park is great to train in summer, but as it gets dark it is hard to do the work there, as you are confronted with absolute darkness. Our new location is a playground on the Donaulände, next to the Urfahrmarkt-Gelände. Darkness is no problem here – the lights of the city provide light enough to see what one has to see.

Pre-Fatigue

After our last kettlebell-workouts, we put the focus on increasing pressing power for the overhead press. One of the best exercises to achieve this is the Sots press – an overhead press from the bottom squat position. While this sounds not much different to a regular press, it is a magnitude more difficult.

We did the following:

3 rounds of

• 1-2-3 repetition ladder of clean, squat + sots press with 16 kg kettlebell (left + right)
• 10 marine dips (on the Jungle Gym)

I struggled a lot with both Sots press and dips, due to my time off (I was sick once during the last two weeks) – more than two presses were impossible to do and I did no more than one dip – the others were excentrical only. I supplemented the set with push-ups to make up for the missed dips.

The Sots press is a lot about technique, I had to learn. One time they worked well, another time I struggled with even one repetition. It all is a matter of experience, I am convinced.

Metabolic Conditioning

4 rounds of
Sprint (approx. 100 meters)
10 + 10 Snatches 16 kg kettlebell
5 Burpees
6 Towel Pull-Ups

The met-con was especially hard to do after an already intense pre-fatigue workout. Doing snatches after sprinting are a delicate matter: You have to watch your technique tightly or you lose your form – and risk injuries. Towel pull-ups are a killer finisher – the grip is already exhausted and yet you have to pull your body up. Here is where you can go beyond your own limits.

A finisher was not necessary after this workout – we already had enough.

On to another great workout next week – I am still feeling it, although it’s Saturday already.

Train on and stay strong
Simon

Good evening and welcome to the world of chill!

Our climate has opted to skip autumn and flowed from late summer directly into pre-winter conditions. But cold conditions are not enough to stop us from working out (we even did a training camp at Dominik’s premises last winter amid a snow storm – no problem at all!). The advantage of working out in the cold is that the temperature itself is little of a problem, as your body is challenged constantly and thereby warmed from within.

Nontheless, it is of great importance that you keep your workouts short in the cold season – especially the rest pause between sets and exercise blocks should be minimized as you cool out almost immediately and thereby are likely to catch a cold. Opt for a workout that is of short duration but of high intensity.

For this workout, I did likewise. The core of the workout is a system that I read about on Testosterone Muscle, authored by (who else ) Dan John: The Litvinov Workout. Hammer thrower gold medalist Sergey Litvinov has a very distinct training pattern: He combines heavy basic exercises with sprint intervals. This type of workout is very short yet extremely intense and therefore more than suited for our timely needs.

We therefore did:

Warm-Up

Pre-Fatigue

5 + 5 Push Press 24 kg Kettlebell
3 x Rope Climb
- 3 rounds

5 + 5 (or 3 + 3) Turkish Get-Up 16 kg Kettlebell as finisher.

The pre-fatigue training targeted the upper body musculature, as it would not be challenged too much in the upcoming Litvinov circuit. We did a pushing exercise, a pulling exercise and (to my knowledge) the best abdominal exercise – the get-up. Needless to say that this part of the workout was very intense already – just try to read it from Peter’s mimics. The foremost problem with the exercises was the lack of grip strength we were able to show – if you have no feeling whatsoever in your hands, climbing is an utter struggle.

Peter was the only one attending (besides me) this time. Dominik and Rainer didn’t make it and Harald will be in Graz for studying for quite some more time.

Metabolic Conditioning

Litvinov Circuit
Front Squat (16 + 24 kg Kettlebell), 8-15 reps
400 meter sprint (including a hill sprint)
3 rounds

The Litvinov circuit is not to be underestimated! I tried to do the number of squats prescribed but utterly failed by doing 6-5-3 squats in the respective rounds – it simply was impossible to accomplish more than that, despite slow running on my side. Not only fatigue is a factor in metabolic conditioning training, nausea is another critical one. The degree by which I was feeling nauseous during the second sprint already was close to the edge of being bearable. Still, this is what gets you further and nothing else

Post-Fatigue

Kettlebell Complex of

• Clean
• Military Press
• Front Squat

5 repetitions, 3 rounds, using one 16 kg kettlebell

The post-fatigue training was incorporated as the Litvinov circuit is intense but still we somehow felt like it was not enough – the capability of the body to come back is tremendous. Three rounds of this light-weight complex was a good finisher to use up the last reserves

Ironic: After the completion of our workout, the feeling in our hands had returned. We were able to perform better rope climbs after the workout than at its start.

I am very much looking forward to the next workout. Dominik has revealed a hard nut to crack as the next workout suggestion

Train on and stay strong,
Simon

Yesterday we went for another great CrassFit workout. After a short break of one week without workout (attendees were either sick or had no time – I wouldn’t go for it all alone, did kettlebell complexes instead ) we got into gears just fine.

Unfortunately, Harald and Dominik were absent, for good reasons: Harald is back to Graz and Dominik occupied with heavy manual labor – so it was only Rainer, me and Peter.

We did the following workout:

Pre-Fatigue

5 x 5 Frog Jumps uphill
5 + 5 Turkish Get-Up (with water bottle or 16 kg kettlebell, according to level of expertise)
5 x 2 Lengths rope climbing

For the frog jumps, it is especially important to gain momentum with the right arm work. Look at how Peter is doing the jumps and what impressive horizontal leaps he can take. This is due to long training (he is an active track & field athlete). Lead the arms from down below up and forward and time the movement of the hands with the movement of the feet to achieve maximum leaps.

The Turkish get-up is one of the best exercises to train your abdominal strength but also one of the most dangerous. I highly recommend that you start training it using no weight at all. Start to add resistance only when you have learned the technique! It is important that the shoulder is resting in its socket and the arms are straightened toward the sky – and the look is always facing the hand reaching out of the clouds.

Start slowly and always part the movement into steps. Watch Peter’s form – he is doing great!

Finally, the rope climbing was the first exercise I couldn’t film due to the darkness – I will make sure that I take a good source of light with me in future to enable video capture also amid night hours.

Metabolic Conditioning

5 rounds of:
5 L-pull-ups (easier variation: tucked in knees)
16 Lunge walks
10 L-push-ups
200 meter running

The darkness and other circumstances prevented us from documenting this one. To explain the L-pull-up and the L-push-up, I will provide videos.

The L-pull-up works abdominals as well as the back and arms – it is a lot harder than a regular pull-up. Tucked in knees are the easier version that I used, due to the inability to perform an exercise this hard.

Watch this video at 3:00. Here you see a variation of a push-up with legs up the wall. This is how the starting position of a L-push-up looks like – from there on, it is like a handstand push-up: Descend like you are to ram your head into the ground and push yourself up again. Any wall or elevated platform is fine for doing this – just keep in mind to have a right angle between legs and torso.

We shortened the run a bit due to the circumstances and used it for regeneration issues. In total, this was the easiest workout of the CrassFit series up to date and will be remembered as such. The preparation was suboptimal and will be augmented next time.

I am looking forward to next week’s workout. It will be a major test for metabolic and muscular endurance, I guarantee Hopefully, with good lighting assistance to be able to capture it properly.

Train on and stay strong,
Simon

Good morning, fellow readers!

Yesterday we did another CrassFit training session with the following program:

Pre-Fatigue

Focus: Strength + Jump Power

2 rounds of
10 knee tuck jumps
10 whole body jumps (explosive push-ups with the whole body up in the air)
5 explosive pull-ups
5 squat-clean + press (2 x 16 kg kettlebell)

During the pre-fatigue part of the workout we started to realize that it would become a harder workout than we thought Our metabolism was truly fired up by these two rounds – the explosive form of these exercises make them really hard on the body. As a rule of thumb, the metabolic stress is determined by the vertical leap of the movement and its resistance. Squat cleans (with presses) totally destroy the metabolism and if you continue with knee tuck jumps, you are sure to shoot your pulse frequency up into new all-time heights.

Metabolic Conditioning

Focus: Timed Workload (Minute Drills)

60” of

• Split jumps
• Clap Pushups
• Rope pull-ups
• Burpees

with approx. 20” rest between exercises

approx. 2′ rest

75” of

• Jump squats
• Push-ups
• Pull-ups
• Kettlebell swings 16 kg

with approx. 20” rest between exercises

approx. 2′ rest

90” of

• Squats
• Puppy push-ups
• Body rows
• Mountain climbers

With the metabolic conditioning, Peter (who designed the workout) was not 100% correct about the nature of the workout. All of the attendees experienced muscular failure before systemic failure (which is the intention of metabolic conditioning). But not too much of a problem – we did what we could. Initially, we planned the three blocks as 60”, 90” and 120” time under tension blocks but opted to reduce the load as we experienced enormous fatigue after the first block already.

Harald told me between the blocks, that time is relative, after complaining about my level of fatigue. And how relative it is These were amongst the longest seconds I have ever experienced.

Post-Fatigue

Focus: Static Holds

60” static hold of

• Body row (arms 90° flexed)
• Wall sit (30” 45°, 30” 90° leg flex)
• Push up (variable positions)

The static work was the crowning of a tremendously intense workout. The sheer intensity and density of the workouts is the reason that we were unable to do filming this time – so there is no video documentation, I am afraid Apart from the workout intensity, it gets dark earlier and earlier these days so we have to put up with training in darkness in future, I guess. At the time we finished this one (20:00), darkness was embracing us already.

Darkness will not stop us, for sure. The next workout session is scheduled for next Tuesday, 22nd of September 2009. This time, it’s Dominik’s turn to design the workout. He already told us that he will take a barbell with him. What diabolic intentions he has on his mind? Stop by here in one week’s time to find out

Train on and stay strong,
Simon

Odd objects in movement – this was the slogan of our latest CrassFit workout. Our comrade Harald supplied us with tremendous tools to train in classical strongmen-fashion:

Water tubes filled with cement (25 kg each)

A gym ball filled with water (circa 42 kg)

The biggest advantage of these training utilities is their price. Harald calculated the tubes for us. Buying the PVC tubes, the metal grip and the cement (50-50 with water), he invested around 15 Euro for both of them. The waterbag is even cheaper – depending on how much money you spend on the gym ball you may well afford it for a few Euros.

After a warm-up session consisting of numerous coordinative exercises (ducked backward lunges for instance – a hard challenge for the CNS), we split up in groups of 3 and 2 persons. One group started with workout A, the other with workout B.

Workout A

3 rounds of
Farmer’s walk with 2 Tubes, 100 m (2 x 50)
Sprint, 200 m (4 x 50)

Workout B

5 rounds of
Waterbag shouldering 5 each side (NOVICE: 5 waterbag lifts, bearhug)
Pull-Up x 5
Kettlebell military press 5 each side (16 kg kettlebell)

Workout A was short, sweet and hard. The tough part was the waterbag lifting in workout B. If you haven’t had the chance to lift a waterbag yet, I highly anticipate trying it. Without a center of gravity, the whole body has work the stability constantly in order to balance out the water masses and their force of gravity. Explosive lifting and absolute control are key factors of this exercise –pull-ups and military presses are like rest, in comparison.

As a ‘finisher’, we tried out overhead presses with the cement tubes. It was beyond my capabilities but well within Dominik’s abilities – hats off to my strong comrade!

In conclusion, this workout was a highlight for our CrassFit course. It was inspiring and motivating and we look forward to more workouts with even more attendees – with five of them we set a new temporary record at this stage.

More to come next week – training is scheduled for next Tuesday 18:30, Freinberg park.

Train on and stay strong,
Simon

P.S.: Dominik delivered my new kettlebells alongside yesterday’s training. I will put them to good use

A novity introduces the coverage of this week’s CrassFit workout – a video introduction. Kudos to Dominik for filming the introduction.

This week’s workout was suggested by Dominik and inspired by strength coach legend Dan John. We did:

Pre-Fatigue

3 rounds of
Double Kettlebell Complex (2 x 16 kg): Clean, Push Press, Front Squat, 5 repetitions
2 repetitions rope climbing

Metabolic Conditioning

5 rounds of
15 Overhead squat with wooden pole
200 meter run

The workout was short and strenuous – I still feel it two days afterwards. The overhead squats are amongst the best exercises to train the whole body in union. Use a wide grip on the pole and try to do this workout – it looks easier than it is. The hardest part is to sustain form even in a state of fatigue. This workout is not aimed at muscular but at systemic failure. If you are short in cardiovascular endurance, take breaks to assure proper form. Remember that even if your weight is a wooden pole only; act as if it was heavier. If you tend to use bad form with a heavy weight, overhead squats cannot be performed. They are an exercise that requires absolute correctness in form.

Enjoy this workout and post your thoughts and experiences in comments!

Train on and stay strong
Simon