February 2013 – Page 2 – Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs

I Can Do Butterfly Pull-ups!

Last night while watching TV I knocked out 5 sets of 60 air squats. I didn’t time them or the rest periods. Tried to go as fast as I could for each set and still use good form. I could start to feel fatigue setting in at the end of the 3rd set. I had plans to improve my speed and endurance for air squats and wall balls starting at the beginning of the year. I figured it couldn’t hurt my thrusters either. Then I never put time into it other than workouts in Hawaii, where I had limited equipment anyway. No better time than now with the Open just two and a half weeks away. I’m going to do my best to can get in some fast squat work 2-3 times a week for at least the next few weeks. I could do Tabata squats, minute on/off, throw on the 20# weight vest, and come up with other interesting twists to vary the work. I’m looking forward to see what kind of improvement I can make.

My shoulder area is pretty sore from yesterday and I’m feeling all those air squats in my knees since I did them barefoot on hard tile flooring. I got up and went to the 9am. Another day of 3 WODs with a 10 minute cap on each one and a running 30:00 clock. I’ve really liked this style each time we did it.

Right arm after yesterday's 100 ring push-ups — Right arm after yesterday’s 100 ring push-ups

Warm-up

3m Jump Rope
100 Mountain Climbers
80 Bicycles
30 Supine Knees to Elbows
40 Russian Twists (no weight)
1m Plank

Long warm-up. I made it all 3 minutes on the jump rope without a single miss.

30:00 running clock with a 10:00 limit on each WOD. Finish early and rest until the next 10 minutes start.

WODs

21-15-9 Deadlifts (185#)
75 DUs

Not much of a problem here, although deadlift reps did slow down in the last two sets. My double unders were pretty good. Finished in 5:26.

21-15-9

American KBS (70#)
Row (calories)

Worked on better form for my American swings, especially with the heavy weight. Tried to keep a steady pace during the first two rows so I wouldn’t burn out and then went hard in the last one. Time was 5:02.

21 Pull-ups
400m Run
15 Pull-ups
400m Run
9 Pull-ups

Emily told me to go with butterfly pull-ups for this WOD. I wasn’t convinced I should, but you gotta go for it at some point. I made it through the entire WOD with them and got into a rhythm here and there. Definitely could feel less effort getting up over the bar. Need to keep working on them now and they’ll improve. Took me 7:14 to finish this one.

Upper Body Push

After golf last night I was exhausted and got a huge headache which throbbed whenever I moved very much. I’m not used to nearly 6 hours out in the sun like that. Got to bed early for some sleeping recovery. In at 9am this morning.

Warm-up

3/3 World’s Greatest Stretch
400m Run
200m Run Backwards
200m Run
1 x 10 MB Pass Ab Circuit w/ Partner

WOD

“Coe”
10 Rounds

10 Thrusters (95#)
10 Ring Push-ups

A couplet with both movements being upper body pushes. Reminds me of the 21-15-9 thruster and HR push-up WOD I did in a competition, which completely crushed the shoulders. Except this WOD was much tougher due to heavier weight, tougher push-ups, and more than 2x the reps. I didn’t realize it was a Hero WOD until a couple of hours later. Now it makes sense. 🙂

I did the first round unbroken and then switched to 5 thrusters at a time the rest of the way. I think I did the 2nd round of ring push-ups unbroken, then went 5-5 for the next 4 rounds. At that point I realized I was going straight up and down on my ring push-ups. I let myself come forward over the rings and was able to go 6-4 really easily until the last round when I went with as little rest as possible through everything and had to do smaller sets.

My time was 18:54, beating the 20 minute goal I set for myself. This was a good WOD for me to do since I need the work on upper body strength and thrusters. I got some nice skin burn on my triceps from the ring straps.

Ran home for a snack and a little rest. Back at noon for OLY.

Olympic Lifting

Might have been a good idea to skip the OLY work after that shoulder crushing WOD, but I need the technique work.

5 Sets

Hang Power Snatch
Full Snatch
2m Rest

I used 75#, 95#, 105#, 115#, and 125#. Tried to really focus on meeting my hips with the bar. Could tell I was fatigued in the last set. In my full snatches I need to work on riding the bar down instead of crashing into the bottom of the squat.

4 x 2 Drop Snatches

Because of all the shoulder work I used 95# for every set. Concentrated on jumping out to good foot position, keeping the weight back, and riding the bar down.

5 x 3 Snatch Pulls

We went up to the shrug but didn’t break the elbows at the top. I went 95#, 105#, 115#, 125#, and 135#. Found out I haven’t been getting the ankle extension and coming up on my toes. I kind of jump and float. So worked on getting to extension with the ankles as well as in the hips here. Still need to stay over the bar longer too. I could see snatch pulls over and over again really helping with the major problems in my technique.

In the end, I’m glad I was there because I learned a few new things that can help me out. Need to keep working at it.

No WOD Today

After a double last Saturday, Spartan Race on Sunday, and a very heavy week without a day off, I needed some recovery today. Got up early and went for a 2.76 mile hike that took 1:11:03. Didn’t wear the weight vest today because I wanted it to be more about recovery and just moving. Great way to start the day. I went and golfed 18 holes in the afternoon, but rode in a cart for once.

Big Boy DT

Went in this afternoon with Adam to do the hero WOD “DT”, which we missed out on last Sunday because of the Spartan Race.

Warm-up

PVC Pass-thrus
DU

Did a bunch of stretching too and then did some hang cleans and push jerks at 95# and 135#.

WOD

“DT”
5 Rounds

12 Deadlifts (155#)
9 Hang Power Cleans (155#)
6 SH to OH (155#)

I was dreading the shoulder to overhead the most, but it was the hang power cleans that did the most damage. Don’t get me wrong, the push jerks were still pretty terrible for me though.

I broke my rounds down into:

11 deadlifts
1 deadlift + 4 cleans
4 cleans
1 clean + 3 push jerks
3 push jerks

The only round I didn’t do this was the 2nd round when I managed to do all 6 push jerks unbroken. This worked well for me and allowed me to catch my breath a bit in between each phase. It ended up being an extra 3 deadlifts and 1 clean each round, but the deadlifts didn’t bother me at all. My time was 14:40. I told myself I’d be happy if I could stick to 3:00 rounds and I beat that. It really beat me up though. My entire body hasn’t felt this crushed by a WOD in a long time.

I have only done “DT” one other time and it was using 115# back in October for a time of 7:31. Nearly twice as long today with 155#, so power output was much higher at the lower weight, but I wanted something heavy today and clearly hit that goal.

I won’t be able to make it in for a WOD tomorrow morning because of golf, but maybe I’ll get out for an early hike. It’s been a pretty brutal 7 days so a day without a WOD will be welcomed by my body and should be ready to WOD and do OLY on Sunday.

So Much For Resting

I couldn’t help myself. Saw the WOD posted and figured it wouldn’t be too bad and decent for recovery, so I went in at 9am.

Warm-up

3m Row at 20 spm
4 World’s Greatest Stretch (each side)
Tabata Sit-ups

For the first 6 intervals I got 13 sit-ups and then 12 each in the last two for a total of 102.

WOD

3 Rounds

250m Row
20 Wall Balls (20# MB, 10′ target)
15 T2B
10 Front Squats (145#)

The Rx weight was 165#, which I probably should have done, but 145# sure wasn’t easy. I did sets of 6-4 every round on the front squats. For the wall balls I did 20, 12-8, and 10-10. Then for T2B I did 10-5, 8-7, and 10-5. Total time was 12:02. Glad I decided to workout today.

Hit Them Shoulders Hard

My low back and trips are pretty spicy from yesterday. Went in for the noon class.

Warm-up

2m Jump Rope
2 Rounds
- 2 Shoulder Press
- 2 Push Press
- 2 Push Jerk
- 2 Split Jerk
5 Pause Push Jerks
5 Pause Split Jerks
5 Jerk Footwork

Used an empty 45# bar for everything. Shoulders were nice and warmed up after this!

Strength

5 Sets

1 Shoulder Press
3 Push Press
Max Jerks
2m Rest

This is superset week. 🙂

Weight	Shoulder Press	Push Presses	Jerks
95#	1	3	16
105#	1	3	12
125#	1	3	6
135#	1	3	4
140#	1	3	5

Wow! Nowhere near my 1RM of 160# on the shoulder press, but that’s a lot of volume with the push presses and the jerks.

WOD

12:00

800m Run (buy-in)
AMRAP
- 5 Curtis Ps (95#)
- 30 DU (unbroken)

The run really gets you. I missed about 6 times in my 2nd round of double unders, twice in the 20s and one at 27 unbroken. Ugh!! That took a lot of time and winded me bad. I finished with 3 complete rounds plus 5 Curtis Ps.

Tomorrow I’m resting. It’s been a brutal few days.

4 Hundy? So What!

Feeling pretty damn good today considering it’s day 2 after the Spartan Race and the heavy squatting we did yesterday. Went in for the 5:15pm again so my legs could rest.

Warm-up

400m Run
4 World’s Greatest Stretch (each side)
4 Inch Worms
10 Scorpions (each side)
10 Flamingos (each side)

Scorpions were a new move for me. You lay on your stomach with arms straight out to the sides like you are forming a T. Take your leg behind you and over the other leg to tap the ground on the other side with your toes. Nice stretch.

Strength

5 Sets

3-5 Deadlifts
5-7 GHR
2m Rest

More supersetting today! My first time doing GHRs too. I was excited when I saw deadlifts were on the menu. I hit 375# for 5 reps a couple of weeks ago, so I wanted to demolish that today. Set out with a plan and nailed it. I warmed up with 5 reps at 135# and then for my working sets went 225#, 275#, 315#, 365#, and 405#, hitting each one for 5 reps. Didn’t have too much trouble with the 405# either. At the end of December I hit that weight for 2 reps and then lost my grip. No issues today. Sets me up for a big PR next time we go for a 1RM since my old one is only 415#. I did 5 reps of GHRs each set on the GHD.

WOD

5 Rounds

3:00 AMRAP
- 3 C2B Pull-ups
- 6 American KBS (70# KB)
- 9 Box Jumps (24″)
1m Rest

There were a lot of people in class so we had to stagger and spread out all of the equipment, which slowed us down some. I started with box jumps and got exactly 3 rounds during each 3 minute round, pretty much sticking just under 1 minute per round. I had 5-10 seconds left on the clock at the end of each 3 minutes, but the KB was too far away from the box to make a run for it just to get one rep. I did all of the C2B pull-ups unbroken and this was the first time doing a bunch of American swings with the 70# KB. 15 total rounds in one hell of a good WOD.

We Are Spartans!

Yesterday I did a 4.7 mile Spartan Race with a group from CrossFit Full Strength. It was a lot of fun and we all did really well. I was 13th in my age group and 70th overall for men on the day, both in the top 10%, with a time of 1:08:01. After going out for food and drinks I was exhausted and slept over 10 hours last night. Was feeling a little tired this morning, but not too bad other than my hips are really tight. Let myself recover some more and went in for the 5:15pm class.

Warm-up

2 Rounds

500m Row
3 World’s Greatest Stretch (each leg)
5 Inch Worms
10 Leg Swings (F2B and S2S, each leg)

Strength

5 Sets

2-4 Front Squats
3-5 Back Squats
2m Rest

Holy shit! Super setting front squats with back squats is the toughest squat strength day I’ve ever done. I nearly passed out during the last 3 sets and was sweating more than I did from WOD.

Weight	Front Squats	Back Squats
135#	4	5
165#	4	5
195#	4	5
225#	3	3
255#	2	5

I had a plan going in to get to 255# by going up 30# each set. It’s always nice when that works out! I hit 255# for a front squat 2RM last week and for a back squat 5RM the week before. Could I do them back-to-back though? Hell yeah! I don’t think I could have gotten another rep at each one. I did take it a little easy on my reps in the 4th set, but I’m ok with that since it allowed me to get heavy and I still hit the minimum reps. Thrilled with this after an exhausting day yesterday. Walking for the next few days might be tough.

WOD

2 Rounds

50 Push-ups
100 DU
75 AbMat Sit-ups

I ordered the SR-1 Speed Rope from Rogue, which came in on Friday. Tried it out for the first time today in this WOD. Damn it’s a heavy rope! I could really feel the fatigue from it. The handles are awesome, but I might swap out the extra wire that came with the Again Faster Revolution rope. Push-ups were by far the most difficult part of this for me (which I expected), but the last 50 sit-ups were pretty brutal and got slow, but I managed to do all of the sit-ups unbroken in both rounds. My time was 12:17.

Double Trouble

I was itching for a WOD all day yesterday since I’d taken Wednesday off and won’t be doing a WOD tomorrow since we are doing a 4.7 mile Spartan Race. The hike helped, but it’s not the same as being in the box. In at 8am this morning for the competitors WOD and stayed for the regular class as well.

Warm-up

PVC Pass-thrus
500m Row
Thrusters

Strength

Find 1 RM Thruster with 1 attempt EMOM. No rack, so must do a power clean and a thruster or a squat clean thruster. Keep increasing weight each minute until failure.

I started at 115# and added 10# every minute. Got 195# and then failed at 205# because I was too slow coming out of the squat clean and couldn’t get any momentum on the bar. That’s a 30# PR for my thruster when I last did it back in April. Having to go every minute is pretty tough once the weight gets heavy. I did power cleans up through 175# and then switched to squat cleans. So that ended up being 10 attempts in total.

Competitors WOD

This was WOD #6 of the 2011 Regionals.

20 cal Row
30 Burpees
40 Two-arm DB ground-to-overhead (45/35# DBs)
50 T2B
100′ Overhead walking lunge (45/25# plate)
150′ Sprint

I used 40# DBs for the ground-to-overhead and I’m glad I did. I still had to split them up into sets of 5 (pretty much doing a clean and jerk) and it took the most time by far. I should have worn some wrist sweat bands because I could barely hold the bar for the T2B making those take a lot longer than they should have since I had to do 2 or 3 at a time most of the way. Everything else was kind of easy. Took me 15:52 to finish.

Stuck around and let my heart rate come down while the 9am class did a warm-up.

Regular WOD

25:00 AMRAP with a partner

Partner 1 – 400m Run
Partner 2 – AMRAP:
- 5 HSPU
- 10 KBS (53/35)
- 15 Goblet Squats (53/35)

* Both partners work the entire time, but keep switching off and continuing where the last guy left off in the AMRAP so total rounds can be counted.

Brian was the only other person in at 8am and stuck around too, so we paired up for this WOD. We finished 14 rounds of the AMRAP doing everything Rx. I picked up a nice little tip from the CrossFit Journal to make the HSPU easier and didn’t really have any issues until my last 5 when they started to get a little tough. My arms were shaky after the first WOD today so I’m thrilled I was able to hold on that long. The goblet squats were by far the roughest part of the circuit, but I pushed myself to always do 15 unbroken because squat stamina is one of my weaknesses.

Great 2 hours of work! Think I’ll try to get out for some golf this afternoon.

A Long Weighted Hike

Since CrossFit Full Strength is closed on Fridays and Adam wasn’t getting in there this afternoon, I needed to do something. Headed out for a longer hike and wore the 20# vest. Had to park pretty far away, so it was nearly a mile just to get to and from the trail head. In total it ended up being 4.08 miles and took 1:50:13. It doesn’t seem to get any easier with that vest even as I use it more.