On a beautiful Thursday afternoon, Peter and I met to pull off yet another intense workout. This time I chose a very simplistic yet effective Quick Death-style workout, due to pressing time on Peter’s side.

After a thorough warm-up, we simply did the following:

Metabolic Conditioning

• 10 Kettlebell Swings (unilateral)
• 1 Burpee
• 10 Kettlebell Swings (unilateral)
• 2 Burpees
• 10 Kettlebell Swings (unilateral)
• 3 Burpees
• …
• 10 Kettlebell Swings (unilateral)
• 9 Burpees
• 10 Kettlebell Swings (unilateral)
• 10 Burpees
• 10 Kettlebell Swings (unilateral)
• 9 Burpees
• …
• 10 Kettlebell Swings (unilateral)
• 3 Burpees
• 10 Kettlebell Swings (unilateral)
• 2 Burpees
• 10 Kettlebell Swings (unilateral)
• 1 Burpee

The workout was inspired by a challenge proposed in the Fighter Fitness forums.

This workout has a total workload of 190 Kettlebell Swings and 100 Burpees, which is a tremendous lot. We opted to do this with a 16 kg Kettlebell. Simply adjust the weight to your level of physical ability.

Descending up the pyramid turned out to be the easy part of the workout – the descend back down is a harsh field where you have to battle the overwhelming fatigue that is trying to conquer your body. I have not done any metabolic work for several months and therefore struggled a lot with the high intensity sustained over a longer period of time. I felt like strangled and had a hard time catching my breath. I do not recommend this workout to beginners. Please become comfortable with the 100-Burpee-Challenge (which is simply doing 100 Burpees for time) beforehand.

Peter finished the workout in 16′00”. It took me 18′15” to do likewise – I had to incorporate longer breaks down the pyramid due to the aforementioned fatigue symptoms.

This workout seems to be a great tool to maximize work capacity and suitable to be its benchmark, amongst other workouts. Because of its layout (Swings favour stronger and larger athletes, Burpees lighter ones), this workout allows a fair comparison between athletes – an important factor of competition. The source of inspiration for this workout already holds benchmarks that will take its time to best – like Rosch’s performance to pull this workout off with a 24 kg Kettlebell (unilateral (!)) in an amazing time of 14′11”.

Plenty reason to get going

Train on and stay strong,
Simon

Back from hibernation mode. Against all odds, it took us another two months to give CrassFit another shot. I have to say that the winter has been long and harsh here in Austria and – with the exception of the Winter Training Camp in Thomasroith – Trainings have neither been very productive or enjoyable for me throughout the last few months.

With the advent of spring, things slowly begin to change again and it’s perfectly fitting to restart the initiative.

Rainer, Jozy, Peter and I assembled at our Donaulände meeting point – only to find this back then deserted place rather crowded with people of all ages – from kids to grannies. Higher temperatures lead to an increased rate of activity amongst our contemporaries – a good thing to see

Albeit being absent, Dominik Feischl provided us with a tremendous workout to ultimately wake our bones and muscles from hibernation. We did the following:

Pre-Fatigue

3 Rounds of:

• Jungle Gym Pull-Ups (all out)
• 15 Push-Ups with elevated feet
• 10 Double Kettlebell Front Squats (2 x 16 kg)

Struggling with this one relentlessly pointed out the weaknesses that have emerged through extensive absence of hard training.

Metabolic Conditioning

3 Rounds of:

• 10 Kettlebell Swings (16 kg)
• 200 Meter Sprint
• 10 + 10 Kettlebell Cleans (16 kg)
• 200 Meter Sprint

Unfit to match the requirements of such a strenuous workout after the long winter break, our lungs and legs were shattered by the intensity created by this bout. 200 Meters seem like a lot of distance to cover when your legs are tired and yearning for rest.

As if it would not have been enough, we added a Quick Death-style post-fatigue exercise:

Post-Fatigue

The infamous Leg Matrix:

• 24 Full Squats
• 12 + 12 Lunges
• 24 Split Jumps
• 24 Jump Squats

The result: A lactate-infested lower body.

We finished with a bit of toying on the Jungle Gym and a towel and called it a day. With a few days between the workout and the coverage I can report of a deep muscle soreness from Saturday to Monday – the result and price of getting back into gears.

A price I am more than willing to pay

Train on and stay strong!

Simon

P.S.: A great thank you towards my CrassFit training partners. There have been little incidents I have enjoyed as much as this little training session. Physical activity at this level of intensity really ups your spirits

We’re back from a long break. We either trained abroad, were sick or not motivated enough to train – which applies to me in particular. With today’s training I consider myself back

After a long drive to Linz, battling myself through snow-covered roads amid the cold Mühlviertel winter landscape, I picked up Peter. We almost instantly decided not to train at our usual place – somewhere nearby would suit us better. Peter suggested the stairs in the house he lives in. A great idea!

The house has a total of twelve floors, all of which were utilized today.

We did the following:

• Crawling up the stairs backwards (six floors)
• Utilizing jump variations (six floors
• Crawling back down (three floors)
• More jump variations (nine floors)
• Stair sprint (twelve floors at once)
• Lunges (twelve floors at once)
• Farmer’s walk up the stairs (most stairs with either 48 or 40 kilogram, one floor with 88 kg of additional weight)

We finished the workout with some back exercises (either stiff leg deadlifts or rows) to give our back the proper portion of work in the end.

[---]

I have to say that I am amazed! Crawling up some stairs is a tremendous workout for the whole body – I already feel my shoulders and core aching. The sprint upward was a killer for the legs in terms of systemic workload, the lunges and weighted walks were a test of muscular endurance.

Overall the training showed that you do not need much to train properly. Stairs are everywhere – and usually not frequented well. During our workout, we did not run into one single person. All of them were taking the elevator instead – a pity, when you think of the possible health benefits of taking the stairs instead of the elevator. For those who sit all day, this is a welcoming way of exercising a little every day. If you want to take it further: Climb up the stairs instead

Thanks to Peter for another great workout!

Onward to continuing next week – hopefully!

Train on and stay strong,
Simon

Since I have attended the Grizzly Training winter camp at Dominik’s place, there have been lots of thoughts about the mental component of training. As I have noted in the most recent CrassFit coverage, it was Harald who enabled me to sustain performance even when my body screamed at me to stop.

In order to advance, you have to go beyond your limits. If you duck back into your comfort zone every single time, you will never enjoy the experience of stepping out of it – this applies to the world of training as well as to each and every everyday situation. Popular books about personal development write about the fact that you have to do something you have never done before to achieve something you have never achieved before. This continues to proves true to all of us.

In relation to my high repetition training goal (front squatting 2 x 20 kg kettlebells for 20 repetitions), I planned on achieving this goal by means of mental power – to force myself through the barrier of not wanting to do anymore due to fatigue.

Several days ago, I did a set of 15 repetitions, which was far from the maximum performance that could have been achieved. I simply stopped due to fatigue: My mind built up a glass wall which I was not to pass. But since I wanted to achieve the goal, I tried once more – this time with the hint of Harald in mind: Think of the next repetition only. There is nothing but the next repetition. One more perfect repetition, that is all.

This is the result:

I have not been at my limit and probably could have done up to 25 repetitions with the weight. It was all a matter of mental focus – and nothing else. The less factors of disturbance hinder you, the higher the power output you can yield.

Yesterday, I experienced something similar when trying out deadlifts. I have not lifted heavy for months so I feared that I would have lost a lot of power. I experienced before that the deadlift was the one exercise where I lost performance when I changed the exercise regime towards bodyweight exercises and kettlebells – while other exercises increased in performance (front squat and military press for instance).

With a personal best of 142.5 kg for a single rep, I did the following (weight/repetitions):

60/15 90/5 100/3/20 110/3 120/1/3 130/1/3 140/0/1

This sure is a unusual workout layout. I initially planned to go all-out on a 20 repetition set, following the principles of PITT-Force, but 100 kg was too light of a weight to force my power reserves to activate. I prolonged my workout with heavier triples. From 120 kg on, I did one test repetition in sumo stance, while I used a shoulder-width stance for the main sets.

I was amazed how easy it was to climb up the weight ladder, until I reached 130 kg. It was a struggle to lift them in sumo stance, so I used a little mind-trick for the triple: Music! Using the fanfare of VNV Nation’s “Pro Victoria”, I triumphed over the weight – and what an uplifting feeling it was!

Going up to 140 kg, I missed the lift in sumo stance. Reason enough to have a mental blockade doing it in narrow stance. I tried to empty my mind, put tension in every body fiber and lifted. I felt like failing but this time I saw it through – either the barbell would have dragged me to the ground or I lifted it up – letting go of the barbell was just no option. The weight had finally been lifted and I was relieved – SUCCESS!

With all the struggle, the feeling afterward has been great. If you work hard to achieve something, the feeling thereafter is always proportional to the amount of work you invested. This is the reason, why hard-working people often are happier than those who do not have to struggle to achieve or receive things – they often lack a sense of reason. You have to be able to invest something in order to get something back.

In training, the return on investment usually is of great ratio, if you work out intense, brief and infrequent.

Train on and stay strong
Simon

Just before the christmas holidays are nearing their end, we set out for one more CrassFit training session. Harald will have moved back to Graz to continue studying the next day, so we decided to do one last workout together.

Dominik (who had a day off), Peter (returned from Sweden), Harald and I were present to accept Dominik’s challenge for an extremely heavy exercise collection.

Warm-Up

We did bodyweight movements with a focus on hindu squats as a warm-up. As I was a wee bit too late, so I missed out on the 100-repetition set the others did but set out to do at least a 50-repetion set as a small compensation. The warm-up was concluded with a jog from the parking space to the playground, where we usually do our workouts.

Pre-Fatigue

The pre-fatigue exercise today was split into two parts. The first challenged the upper and the second the lower body.

1. Rope pull-up pyramid: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 repetitions (49 total)
2. Kettlebell front squat pyramid: 1-3-5-7-9-7-5-3-1 repetitions (41 total)

First we did a pull-up pyramid on the rope – starting with one repetition, up to seven repetitions (or how much one is able to do – as for me, my maximum are five and a half repetitions). In total we ideally did 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 repetitions – 49 repetitions in total, what a volume! I had to struggle to keep pace – rope pull-ups are an amazing exercise. The main problem with them is the grip, when it is cold. Although it initially hurts, its useful to pick up some snow and to rub it in-between your hands – the grip becomes better instantly.

To target our lower body, we jogged back to the parking space, packed out our gear (in this case: two 20 kg and two 24 kg competition kettlebells) and started a pyramid of double kettlebell clean + front squat. In total we did 1-3-5-7-9-7-5-3-1 (= 41 total) repetitions with the weight we could just handle. I started off with the two 24 kg kettlebells but went for the 20 kg ones from the 5 repetition set onwards.

I feel that a front squat pyramid is mostly a mental thing. The exercise itself is so overwhelmingly hard to accomplish – the clean is sucking out your power, as it requires explosive movement and the squat consumes all there is left – that it soon feels simply unbearable to even continue. During the peak set of the pyramid (9 repetitions), I was feeling as if I had to give up after six repetitions – when Harry kicked in and gave me back my focus. He had me focus on the next repetition only – and it somehow worked. A perfect clean followed by a perfect squat – and nine repetitions were done in no time. Kudos to Harry – I feel he is a great motivator, when it comes to seeing a heavy set through.

Metabolic Conditioning

Not really a metabolic conditioning workout today, as we were so sucked dry from power from the pre-fatigue part already. We actually did two rounds of:

1. Kettlebell complex: 5 Swings L + R, 5 Cleans L + R, 5 Military- or Push-Presses L + R, 5 High Pulls L + R
2. 10 Explosive push-ups

… and proceeded onwards to the finisher.

Post-Fatigue

The workout was concluded by an alternative version of sled dragging. As the normal dragging turned out to be too easy (with another attendee as living weight attached), we did pull-throughs and rows with the sled to make this especially hard on the whole body. After the sled had returned to its starting position, we called the workout a close.

Thereafter, we had a good sip of the bottle of raw milk I brought with me, waved goodbye – most probably to see each other again next week. Harry will be with us by the time of the next holidays, for sure .

I recommend that you just try out the pre-fatigue part of our workout – especially the Clean + Front Squat pyramid. I feel that this compound exercise is a workout of itself. We had a good talk about how top coaches like Dan John are convinced that you do not need more than two 32 kg kettlebells to have a tremendously challenging workout – even for someone who usually lifts weights a lot heavier (like a powerlifter or Olympic weightlifter). Just take two heavy kettlebells and try the Clean + Front Squat exercise combination. It humbles each and every athlete, I am convinced.

Train on and stay strong!
Simon

After a few days off because of an oral surgery I had to undergo, I started off my training yesterday with a little trial that I aim to extend during the next few days. The target of the training routine I thought of is to build sustained power in various aspects: Strength, endurance, willpower, full body stability and grip strength.

The training routine itself is simple. Grab two Kettlebells (or dumbbells, barbels, sand bags, stones – whatever comes to your mind) that are heavy enough and do these two exercises:

• Proper warm-up
• 20 repetitions front squat
• 5 minutes rest
• 20 repetitions clean & press

Although the workout consists of only two exercises, it is tremendously challenging. If you collapse on your first try before reaching the goal of 20 repetitions, do not worry – I failed as well. The goal is to stick to it and work yourself up towards facing this challenge. It will make you stronger in every area you could think of.

As for my first try, watch this video:

The second part is solely about technique issues concerning the Clean & Press. This exercise – performed with double kettlebells – is truly the prime discipline of kettlebell lifting and lifting in general. It involves the full range of motion of getting the kettlebells from the ground up above your head – in two stages, instead of one, like in the snatch, but with mere pressing power instead of ballistic momentum. One important aspect of this exercise is the way the kettlebell is pressed overhead. If done with a strict military press movement, the overall stability and form is normally easily sustained. A push-press, however, involves a tremendous lot more explosive moment and thereby potential for instability – while the pressing power needed is diminished, the stability factor has to be increased the same way. Doing the exercise unilateral instead of bilateral is another way of attaining good form – but it is without comparison to the bilateral execution.

Just try out what is okay for you. Adjust your working weight and then start – work yourself up to 20 repetitions and reap the benefits of your hard work!

Train on and stay strong,
Simon

With a bit of delay: The coverage of our official Christmas-workout, done on the 22th of December 2009.

Unfortunately, the creator of the workout we used was not present – Dominik Feischl was absent due to work issues (curses on his boss), the same reason hindered Peter from being present. It therefore was down to Rainer, Jozy and me. The three of us had a distinct task: Not putting Dominik’s name to shame in the execution of the following workout:

Workout “24″

• 24 Snatches each arm
• 24 Swings each arm
• 24 High Pulls each arm
• 24 Clean + Press each arm
• 24 Pull-ups
• 24 Ring dips

Finisher: Farmer’s Walk.

The prescribed weights were 16 kg for men and less for women (Jozy used the 8 kg Kettlebell). We also swapped Ring Dips with elevated push-ups, as we all were not capable of doing such a lot of repetitions of dips.

The structure of the workout has been to freely choose how much sets of which exercise and in which order exercises were done. We all opted for sets of six repetitions and four rounds thereof.

While the mark has been hit with pull-ups and push-ups, the other exercises were slightly to little of a challenge. After the second round I changed gears and did the exercises with a 20 kg competition Kettlebell – which proved to be a much more of a challenge and the right weight to work with (for me). The weight probably has to be spiced up to make this workout a real ‘killer’.

Our finisher were two rounds (approx. 100 meters) of Farmer’s Walks. Jozy used 2 x 20 kg, Rainer and me opted for 2 x 36 kg – heavy enough to leave us exhausted – perfect! As it was beginning to get really cold, we ended here – short and sweet.

Kudos to Dominik for the workout – we’re off into the Christmas holidays with this. The next challenge will be the Winter training camp at Dominik’s premises on the 2nd of January, 2010.

A late merry Christmas and a happy new year to all of you – and do not forget to train on

Simon

P.S.: Please excuse our memory lapse – we forgot to take photos!

This Tuesday, Rainer, Jozy and me assembled in Linz to perform a very special workout, Dominik prepared for us – although being absent. The main challenge this time was the extreme cold climate we had to face – the temperature was well below the zero degree mark.

Due to this limitations, it was of extreme importance, that we did everything possible to keep the workout short – and intense, to warm ourselves up. As a disclaimer I have to point out that this really is an advanced workout, at least in its original constellation.

The workout consisted of two blocks, which we performed after the warm-up:

Block One

Five rounds of:

• 12 Thrusters (2 x 16 kg Kettlebell)
• 6-8 Pull-Ups
• 30 Strict Sit-Ups

with 30” to 60” rest between rounds

Block Two

Four rounds of:

• 10-12 Double Snatches (2 x 16 kg Kettlebell)
• Box Jumps, max. in 30”
• 8-10 Renegade Rows (2 x 16 kg Kettlebell) with a Push-Up inbetween repetitions

with 30” to 60” rest between rounds

So much for the original workout, as initially proposed by Steve Maxwell. We, however, made a few adjustments to create an effective workout without jeopardizing ourselves with too much load. The weight for the Thrusters was scaled down as necessary, we did only six pull-ups, Double Snatches were substituted with single ones or Clean and Press for those illiterate in the technique, we did a fixed amount of ten jumps per round and scaled down weight on the Renegade Rows as necessary.

As we all were pretty much exhausted at the end of the workout, the load was just fine for our capabilities. However, I have to say that I felt ambivalent about the outcome – I was not really challenged metabolically and had power for quite some more repetitions at the end of the fourth round of block #2 – on the other hand I felt that my power curve had become very flat. It was a matter of a few repetitions to diminish my ability to go on. This normally is where you should stop to not injure yourself. Lastly, I have to admit that I faced the workout with the advantage of having already tested it on last Sunday – where I struggled hard to cope with the intensity.

A few hints on the workout:

• Really scale down the weight you’re working with to one that you can quite easily handle. Because of the high repetition count, a ‘light’ weight can become heavy over time
• If you decide to go pretty heavy, opt to split sets. 12 Thrusters were split into either 2 x 6 or 3 x 4 repetitions to manage the weight, for instance.
• Really look at your form! This is the most important part to keep yourself healthy – work hard, but do not force yourself too far!
• Replace Double Snatches with Single Snatches if the weight is too much for you. If you lack experience in doing the Snatch, replace it with Clean & Press – an equally challenging exercise. Note that Clean & Press requires more strength than Snatches do, as they are less explosive. You could opt for Push Press to make the exercise easier
• Renegade Rows require a lot of full body tension – really look at how you perform and use the right weight! I have found it useful to use a very wide feet stance to retain stability while pulling

If you watch these points, there is little reason not to do this tremendous workout. I really recommend doing it more often – two times a week for a time of about four weeks. You will be amazed how much you will progress in terms of metabolic stress resistance and strength. Regular workouts are the key to success, I’m convinced.

Train on and stay strong,
Simon

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