February 2017 – Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs

No Lungs

After cooling off and sitting at home last night I was feeling wrecked. My back wasn’t so bad but my body just felt beat up and exhausted. Woke up feeling good this morning and a little sore, but nothing compared to the day after my first attempt.

Warm-up

Bottom Squat Hold
Pass throughs
PVC Good Mornings
Body Rotations

Conditioning

15:00 AMRAP

30 Double Unders
12 Wall Balls (20#, 10′)
3 Muscle-ups

Was feeling really good about unbroken dubs and I think I jinxed myself because then I missed 4 times in the final set after no misses. I made it through exactly 8 rounds with about 10 seconds left but didn’t feel like picking up the rope. All muscle-ups were unbroken without a problem.

My lungs didn’t seem to want to function today after working so hard last yesterday.

Rested 10:00 and then…

7 Rounds

10 Push Jerks (115#)
10 Pull-ups

We scaled it and turned it into a 3 main follow-the-leader. As written it was supposed to be 10 rounds solo of 10+10 with 135#. This was plenty of work and hard as hell as it we did it anyway. I finished after about 10:15.

Had my grips on really loose due to the jerks, but then they bunch up so much on the pull-ups that they cause more harm than help. Tore them off after the 2nd round. Did pull-ups unbroken until the last set where I had so much sweat I was slipping off the rig and did 8-2.

Much harder day than it looked like. Bryan was beat too so not sure how much was due to my 2nd 17.1 try or that first 15 minutes.

17.1 Redo

Confident I’d crush my previous score of getting through 215 reps in the 20 minute time cap. Plan was to switch hands in the air on all of the snatches, not stand up on the box, and reduce my steps by turning in the jump and stepping down backwards off the box.

Warm-up

Pass throughs, stretching, and twisting
4:00 Airdyne
Did some of each movement getting the hand of better efficiency.

CrossFit Games Open Workout 17.1

10 Dumbbell Snatch (50#)
15 Burpee Box Jump-overs (24″)
20 DB Snatch
15 BBJO
30 DB Snatch
15 BBJO
40 DB Snatch
15 BBJO
50 DB Snatch
15 BBJO

Finished in 19:15! So much better. It hurt so much worse on the lungs though. It was considerably easier on my back without spending so much time bent over switching the dumbbell hands on the ground. Losing almost 4 pounds in the last couple of days probably helped on the burpees some. Look at the difference in my splits…

Improved round 1 from 2:06 to 1:40, round 2 from 3:27 to 2:47, round 3 from 4:32 to 4:13, and round 4 from 5:43 to 5:24. Then to finish it off I did the round of 50s in 5:09, which was faster than I did the 40s! The snatch hand switch was much faster, but it was also harder on the shoulder and the lungs. I had to do the 30 is 3 sets of 10 today and still did the 40 in 4 sets of 10. I was able to do the 50 in one fewer set by going 14-12 and then 10-14 maybe? It took me forever to catch my breath.

Eventually jumped on the Airdyne for a nice 15:00 flush, going 3.53 miles.

Gymnastics

8 Rounds (Tabata)

20s T2B
10s Rest

Strapped on my grips and tried to match the 7s I’d done last time. Nearly made it. Did 6 sets of 7, then 6-1, and only managed 2-2-1 in the final set. I’ll take it though after all those DB snatches.

Bring on 17.2!

Figured out Bar Muscle-up Cycling

Oh by my low back is all kinds of sore and so is my upper back between my shoulder blades. Legs were tired last night but feel fine today. Ass is a bit sore. Went to the gym at 3 with Bryan.

Warm-up

Shoulder stretching and body twisting
1,000m Row
17.1 Movement Testing

I tried out some efficiency changes for both movements which should make up a lot of time. I wasted so many seconds when I did the workout.

Weightlifting

2 Hang power Snatch + 3 OHS

2 sets 45#
2 sets 95
115
135
145
155
165

Programmed as snatch + 2 hang snatch + 3 OHS, but I wasn’t pulling from the ground and didn’t want to drop into the squat. Hell, I was going to completely skip this portion but decided to adjust it.

Strength – Back Squat

5×45#
5×135
5×205
5×245
3x5x265

Supposed to be 3×5 @ 75%, which would be 285 on my estimated max, but with my back to tight I scaled it back.

Conditioning

20:00 AMRAP

20 Walking Lunges
15 cal Row
4 Bar Muscle-ups

Made some adjustments since it was too cold to run outside and no Assault Bikes. Did MU on the bar so I could try dropping back to the bottom of the dip before pushing away from the bar into the next rep. My goal was to do 2 sets of 2 each round so I could work on this. Took me a few rounds to work out a few things, like rotating hands at different points, etc. Really paid off though. I’ve never felt better with the transition. I did wear grips too, which needed some adjustments because they tend to really grip the bar when chalked up. I even did all 4 unbroken in my last set. We didn’t have an official count, but it was either 7 (most likely) or 8 full rounds plus 16 lunges. We didn’t push anything hard just kept moving. Felt good. I feel 10x more comfortable now if bar muscle-ups are in the Open.

Gymnastics Strength

10:00 EMOM (alt)

15 Ring Push-ups
7 Ring Rows

I still suck at ring rows.

First Attempt @ 17.1

After seeing Ro vs. Boz last night I didn’t expect to finish 17.1. They were hurting!

Did a few heel drives and about 5 minutes on the Airdyne to warm-up, but not much else. The first sets of burpees and snatches would warm me up.

CrossFit Games Open Workout 17.1

10 Dumbbell Snatch (50#)
15 Burpee Box Jump-overs (24″)
20 DB Snatch
15 BBJO
30 DB Snatch
15 BBJO
40 DB Snatch
15 BBJO
50 DB Snatch
15 BBJO

Time cap: 20:00

The burpees crushed my soul. I’ve tried the stay low technique and it never worked for me, feeling like I’d face plant. I was really trying to limit my steps too but didn’t always work. I think I did the 10 and 20 snatches unbroken, then 15-15, and then sets of 10 with pretty short rest. Guess I was taking a bit of time to pick up the DB after the burpees though. I left 10 of the burpees on the table when time ran out for a score of 215, with a tiebreak (last completed round of burpees) at 15:48.

I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed, because I didn’t have expectations to finish. I did learn a lot from the attempt though. My splits after each set of burpees were 2:06, 5:33 (3:27), 10:05 (4:32), and 15:48 (5:43). I spent 4:12 in the final round, with 10 burpees to go. Look how much slower each round got with only adding 10 snatches; An extra 1:21 for the set with 20, then an extra 1:05 for the set with 30, and 1:09 more for the set with 40. If I kept pace on my final set of burpees the 50s round would have been faster than the 40s because I was trying to empty the tank.

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With 2 exceptions in my first 5 Opens, I’ve always been a one-and-done Open athlete. One of those was when I had to do my first attempt the night of the announcement and then drive back to Michigan from Phoenix and the other was when I paced 15.2 way too much. Last year I was already thinking of giving myself the option to redo each workout for this year…

You just learn a lot the first time you do a workout. I’m already thinking next year I might just commit to doing every workout twice for a change and an interesting challenge. If they do introduce a 35-39 Masters division it would be fun to see how I rank with full effort and redoing workouts too. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I have to worry about making it into the Masters Qualifier. I’m far from that level.
16.4

My back is pretty tight and pumped right now, but hopefully I’ll recover well and can make a second attempt on Sunday or Monday. I’m going to finish! It’ll save me a lot of time if I switch hands on the way down instead of resetting every rep on the ground. Maybe a second per rep (150!) and hopefully it’ll save my back from not spending so much time bent over. I’m going to mess around with some different techniques getting over the box too because I wasted so much time there.

Taking advantage of some e-stim on my back to speed up recovery.

Ready

Quick chiro appointment before the gym.

Warm-up

5 Strict Pull-ups
5 Strict Chin-ups
5 Strict Pull-ups
5 Strict Chin-ups
20 Air Squats
DB Squat Snatches
- 25-35-45-50# (1 or 2 each arm at each weight)

Figured I should at least try some squat snatches. First couple felt weird because I’d never done one before. Much easier than I expected them to be. Wouldn’t mind seeing those in the Open considering how many people will have a problem doing them. Doubt Castro would pick them though.

Skipped out on 3×3 deadlifts @ 85% because I don’t want to aggravate my back going into week 1. So I did a little benching until the guys were done.

Bench Press

10×45#
6×95
3×135
3×165
3×195
3×225

I started pausing each rep either with 95 or 135.

Conditioning

20:00 E2M (alt)

50 DU
20 Weighted Step-ups (2×20# DBs, 24″)

Missed after 44 dubs in the first set, but got the other 4 sets unbroken. Weighted step-ups were taking about 55 seconds. I really like this aerobic work each week.

3 Rounds

10 Deadlifts (225#)
20 Toes to Rings
30 cal Row

Scaled back the deadlifts from 275# and made it my goal to go unbroken each round, which I did. Used the rings instead of bar for T2B to save my hands and switch it up. Was able to do 2 sets of 10 every round. Such a difference from the bar. Tried to keep around 1,200 cal/hr on the rower in the first 2 rounds and then picked it up in the 3rd. Finished in 10:45.

Bring on the Open!

Not Today

We went in later hoping there would be more room for us to use the rig and some barbells.

Warm-up

Bottom Squat Hold
Arm Circles
Shoulder Stretching
5 OHS (45#)

Didn’t really do much.

Open 14.2/15.2

Every 3 minutes for as long as possible complete:

From 0:00-3:00, 2 rounds of:
- 10 OHS (95#)
- 10 C2B pull-ups
From 3:00-6:00, 2 rounds of:
- 12 OHS (95#)
- 12 C2B pull-ups
From 6:00-9:00, 2 rounds of:
- 14 OHS (95#)
- 14 C2B pull-ups
Etc., following same pattern until you fail to complete both rounds

One of my least favorite Open workouts but I was confident I could set a PR to beat my best of getting through 14-14-8. I decided to wear my grips because I didn’t want to take any chances of ripping going into the first workout of the Open.

Right off the bat I was having trouble with pull-ups! It didn’t help my grips seemed to be slipping all over the place, but that was a minor annoyance compared to not being able to string together any real sets. Maybe I was fatigued from the muscle-ups yesterday?

I got through 12-12-12-4 and wasn’t even tired. I just could not do fucking pull-ups. My chest-to-bars have been feeling pretty good lately too, so this had to be some kind of fluke. My overhead squats are slow as shit, but weren’t the issue. Disappointed, but not going to beat myself up over it. We were supposed to rest at least 10 minutes before the next part of the session.

Conditioning

100 Bar-facing Burpees

That’s weird…more burpees in the program!

Back in August 50 for time took me 3:29 and I don’t remember it being too bad. This was just boring though. Finished the first 50 at 4:04 and was only 15 seconds slower on the 2nd 50 to end at 8:23.

I was looking at some of my different burpee for time PRs and decided to calculate some ratios. Here’s something I wasn’t expecting… this time today is 2.407x my time for 50 bar-facing, while my best for 100 normal burpees is 2.478x my normal 50. Both ratios are pretty close, but I would expect to fatigue more over the course of 100 bar facing. Or maybe I’m just in better shape? If they had followed the same ration, my time today would have been 14 seconds slower, which is significant!

Accessory

3 Sets

15 Prone GHD DB Rows (25# DBs)
10 Back Extensions
10s Hold

Wow, what a low back pump!

Heavyweight 15.4

Really needed the rest day after the previous workouts. Definitely started getting the “Karen Quads” yesterday, but the soreness is almost gone already, which is unheard of. Every other time I’ve done the 150 wall balls I could barely walk for 3 days. I haven’t done it in almost 4 years though. My shoulders were pretty tired the last couple of days too, but seem fine today.

Aerobic Work

3 Rounds – E5M

20 60 DU
20 Burpees over Rower
20 cal Row

My times were 2:44, 2:50, and 3:09. I messed up 3 or 4 times on dubs in the 3rd round after making the first 2 unbroken. This took a lot more out of my than I expected, but I was moving at a pretty good pace on the burpees.

Power Clean

Work up to a heavy triple as a primer for the WOD. Don’t max out.

3×45#
3×95
3×135
3×165
3×185
3×205

Good enough. All touch-n-go reps.

Conditioning

15.4 – 8:00 AMRAP

3 HSPU
3 Power Clean (185#)
6 HSPU
3 Power Clean
9 HSPU
3 Power Clean
12 HSPU
6 Power Clean
15 HSPU
6 Power Clean
18 HSPU
6 Power Clean
…

I finished 15+6 during the Open in 2015 and did 15+4 this last July. I’ve been feeling much better with my HSPU and managed to get through 9 of the 18 today for a 9 rep PR. I’m also 16 pounds heavier than I was during the 2015 Open! I was cruising along pretty good on my HSPU until the end of the 15 when I started to die out. Held on as best I could at the end. I had 1:18 left on the clock after I finished the 6 power cleans.

On the HSPU I think I did 3, 6, 5-4, 4-4-4, 4-4-4-3, and 2-2-2-3. I could still use a lot of work on my kip to knock them out quicker. Cleans were all quick singles.

Gymnastics

10:00 EMOM

3-5 Muscle-ups

I did 7 sets of 3, a set of 4, failed the 4th, and barely got the 3rd in the final round. 31 total reps. Tried to work on getting some kip into the dips, but don’t think I was very successful because that’s what started giving out.

How?

I did not sleep well and feel weak and tired as fuck this morning. In at 10:30.

Warm-up – 2 Rounds

5 Strict Pull-ups
5 Strict Chin-ups
20 Push-ups
15 Air Squats
40 DU

E2M 20:00 (alt)

15 cal Row
15 Burpees

Whoa, regular burpees for once! Was taking about 40 seconds to row and 45 for the burpees.

12:00 Time Cap

150 Wall Balls (20#, 10′)
Max Muscle-ups

I did 3 sets of 25 and the clock was just over 3:00 when I peeked. Then I did 3 sets of 15 and finally 3 sets of 10. Until the final 2 sets I was resting with the ball between my chest and the wall so I didn’t have to do extra work picking it up. I tried to count so my rests were less than 10 seconds. Finished at 7:06. Somehow my PR was 6:14 from 4 years ago in the Open. That was actually the last time I’ve done “Karen” too. I tend to avoid it because it’s so boring and I can barely walk for 3 days after. I’m beginning to think my judge miscounted my reps in that PR because my notes said I only did 2 sets of 25 and then 20s, 15s, and 10s. I was 30-40 pounds lighter back then, so maybe that’s it. I don’t know.

I collapsed to the floor for some breaths and eventually made my way over to the rings. I don’t think I touched them until after 8:00 on the clock. I did 2-2-2-2-1-1-3 for 13 total reps.

According to BTWB this makes 100 muscle-ups on the rings in 2017 already, compared to only 86 in all of 2016.

3 Bars of Insanity

My ass is kind of sore from Wednesday’s workout, but my back is feeling pretty good.

Front Squat

Supposed to be max reps at 70% (235# for me), but I haven’t squatted heavy since tweaking my back a week ago and I didn’t want to push it. So I stuck to some sets of 5.

10×45#
5×135
5×185
5×215
5×235
5×250

Felt solid. No issues with my back.

Clean & Jerk

Work up to 5×3 @ 70%

3×135#
3×165
3×185
4x3x205

I did an extra warm-up set compared to the other guys to make sure my back was good, so I didn’t exactly do 5 sets at my working weight.

Barbell Conditioning

2017-02-17-3-bars If “Linda” is 3 bars of death, this must be some kind of insanity. If I had seen this workout 2 months ago I would have told you I had no fucking chance.

@ 0:00 – 3 Snatch (115#)
@ 1:30 – 6 Snatch
@ 3:00 – 9 Snatch
@ 4:30 – 12 Snatch
@ 6:00 – 15 Snatch
@ 9:00 – 4 C&J (135#)
@ 10:30 – 8 C&J
@ 12:00 – 12 C&J
@ 13:30 – 16 C&J
@ 17:00 – 5 Thrusters (155#)
@ 18:30 – 10 Thrusters
@ 20:00 – 15 Thrusters

Might be a little confusing, so let me explain. With a running clock, you basically have 90 seconds to complete the assigned work. The exception is you get an extra 1:30 of rest after the final set of snatches and an extra 2:00 after the clean and jerks.

After all of the barbell conditioining intervals we’ve been doing I was confident I’d be able to finish the work, I just didn’t know how long I’d be able to hold sets or how much rest I’d end up getting. I really wanted to get all of the snatches unbroken, but I had to go 10-5 on the final set. I paused at my hips after 10 but had to drop it and finish with singles. Clock was at 7:02, buying me a “long” break.

I started out feeling fine with the clean and jerks (yes, all power clean and push jerks), getting the 4 and 8 unbroken. After a set of 4 in the 12, I finished with singles. Didn’t have a whole lot of rest before having to start the 16, which I did with all singles. Finished those at 15:34 on the clock, so now I had less than 1:30 to rest even though it had a longer time built in.

By the time I got my shit together and added the 10# plates, it was time to go. I started late, but did the set of 5. Then I did 6-4 in the set of 10. The set of 15 was rough, going 5-3-3-2-2 and finished at 22:31 on the clock.

I was finished with all but 2 sets (16 C&J and 15 Thrusters) in less than the allotted 90 seconds. I can honestly say I’ve never done anything close to that before. Total of 45 snatches, 40 C&J, and 30 thrusters. The last 2 sets of snatches pretty much become a light Isabel at 27 reps and the last 2 sets of C&J are only 2 reps shy of Grace. I really want to see what I can do on those benchmarks now!

Gymnastics

8 Rounds (Reverse Tabata)

10s C2B Pull-ups
20s Rest

I did 4 sets of 5 and 4 sets of 6, which is a 10 rep improvement over 3.5 weeks ago.

Hero Chipper

Was not looking forward to this session, which had a version of one of my least favorite workouts.

Warm-up – 3 Rounds

9 Strict HSPU
12 T2B
15 Air Squats

Handstand push-ups are feeling so much better, its unreal. Just a few weeks ago I was dying out doing 3×5 strict. I skipped out on the deadlift work today to let my back rest some more so I did my own thing for the warm-up and then some bench. I’ve definitely gotten used to the extra grip on the bar for toes-to-bars using my chalked up grips. I was falling off after 4 reps today when I wasn’t wearing them! Did all sets unbroken though by regripping through each set.

Bench Press

10×45#
2x5x95
5×135
5×165
5×185
5×205
2x5x225
5×235

If I had known that was only 5 pounds shy of matching my PR for 5 I would have gone for 245.

Conditioning

10 Rounds

1:00
- 10 cal Row
- Max bar-facing Burpees
1:00 Rest

Turned out not to be ad bad as expected. The minute of rest was really nice. I did 12-9-8-8-8-9-9-9-10-11 burpees. So many burpees lately; another 93 today.

“Chipper DT”

Ugh!! I do not do well with “DT” so was not excited to see this come up. The hang power cleans always trip me up so I was afraid of what 45 in a row would feel like.

60 Deadlifts (155#)
45 Hang Power Cleans
30 S2OH

I did 15-15-10 and then 3 more sets (of what, I don’t remember) to finish the deadlifts. My hamstrings and low back were pretty fired up at that point. I had no idea what to try for the cleans so I experimented for my first few sets. I quickly realized that taking the bar down and bouncing it off my legs just above my knee used less explosive energy than trying to stay more upright and bounce it high off my legs. I think I mostly did sets of 4 or 5. The cleans were still the worst part but seemed much easier than even having to do the 9 at a time in regular DT. I think I mostly did 5s on the jerks. It’s all a little blurry. Finished at 11:30, which is only about 1:30 slower than my best for the actual workout. Didn’t feel nearly as bad either, even after the other work we’d done already. Kind of makes me excited to give DT a real shot now. I think I could smoke my PR. Pretty cool variation though.